Up to 80% of all business interruption claims for small to medium businesses are inadequately prepared, according to MSM Loss Management principal Colin Chinner. That can cause some very embarrassing underinsurance problems for the client, and some tough questions for the broker.

BI is becoming a more crucial – and difficult  – part of the commercial insurance landscape, and brokers in Melbourne last Thursday took the opportunity to learn more when Mr Chinner, fellow principal Allan Manning and five other staff held a NIBA-organised BI session.

Brokers learned that 70% of businesses which experience a major event like a fire do not exist in the same form three years later. Mr Chinner said his company’s role is to assist brokers in calculating the sum insured “while highlighting the associated problems, such as why 12 months is an inadequate period of cover”.

The basic message for brokers is simple: “Get it right for the clients, and get it right for your businesses.”