How do you know your business is adequately insured?

When it comes to insuring a business against loss, most would agree that comprehensive cover is essential.

Where opinions may diverge however, is in deciding how much coverage is enough - does it stop at business property insurance or should it include business theft and business liability cover as well? And to what value should cover extend?

The answer will be different for every organisation. The key to addressing the question of appropriate coverage lies in knowing the difference between what you have now and what you actually need.

This may seem like stating the obvious, but Gavin Wray of Elders Insurance Gawler, South Australia, says that a lot of business owners are unaware of what covers they currently have and what these mean in the event something goes wrong.

"We have people come in on a daily basis who are confused about their insurance policies with other companies," says Mr Wray.

He often sees clients with several policies all due at different times, and says helping them become more organised means their insurance will be both easier to manage and easier to understand.

"The first thing we do is we look to consolidate all their insurance under one policy to make it easy for them," says Mr Wray.

Then the Elders Insurance agent can begin to go through a checklist of covers to see what the client has and what they don't.

This is where the individuality of each business comes to the fore, and Mr Wray says spending time with the owner and getting to know their business not only means he can let them know exactly what covers they need, but it helps build a relationship based on trust.

It also means that when a business does renovations, for example, they'll get a call from their insurance agent to let them know that they need to increase their sums insured - a level of attention Mr Wray says most people find "pretty special".

"There's not too many companies that would do that, I would have thought."