Annual Insurance Review Checklist

Why the annual review matters

Insurance quietly goes stale. The business grows, moves premises, adds a service line or takes on staff — and the policies keep renewing on last year's answers. The gap only shows up at claim time, which is the most expensive possible moment to discover it. Set aside an hour before your main renewal date each year and work this list, ideally with your broker. Insurance is regulated financial product territory, so treat this as a framework for the conversation rather than advice on what to buy.

Update the facts first

• List what's changed in the last year — turnover, headcount, new premises or vehicles, new services or products, new states you operate in, major new contracts. Every one of these can affect cover or premium.
• Check disclosure obligations — insurers can reduce or deny claims where relevant changes weren't disclosed. If in doubt whether something is relevant, disclose it.
• Reconcile the asset register against contents and equipment cover — new gear bought during the year is often uninsured simply because nobody told the insurer.
• Review sums insured for underinsurance — rebuild and replacement costs move; a sum insured set years ago may trigger co-insurance (averaging) clauses that scale back every claim, not just the big one.

Walk the cover types

• Public liability — still adequate for your current activities and any contract minimums your clients impose?
• Professional indemnity — required if you advise or design; check the limit against your largest engagement, and remember PI is usually claims-made, so continuity of cover matters when switching insurers.
• Workers compensation — compulsory through your state or territory scheme; confirm your declared wages are accurate, because under-declaring surfaces at audit.
• Business interruption — would the indemnity period actually cover how long a rebuild or relocation would take? This is the most commonly underset number in SME programs.
• Cyber — increasingly expected, and insurers now commonly ask about controls like MFA and backups before offering terms; weak answers mean exclusions or refusal.
• Management liability / directors and officers — worth reviewing once you have a board, significant employees or external shareholders.

Check the fine print that bites

• Excesses — still at a level the business can wear without drama?
• Exclusions and conditions — especially any warranties requiring specific security measures, maintenance or unoccupancy limits; breaching a policy condition can void a claim entirely.
• Contractor requirements — do you hold current certificates of currency for the contractors you engage, and can you produce yours for the clients who require them?

Close it out

• Get competing terms periodically — loyalty is rarely rewarded in insurance pricing; ask your broker to test the market every few years.
• File all policy schedules and certificates in one shared place — a claim after a fire is not the moment to hunt through someone's inbox for policy numbers.
• Diary the renewal and this review — with the owner named and lead time built in.

If your insurance knowledge — what's covered, where the documents are, who the broker is — lives with one person, you'd fail the owner absence test on the day it matters most. Make the review an operational routine, not a personal favour someone does the business each year.