Online retailer insurance

What is online retailer insurance?

Business insurance for online retailers is essential for any business that’s selling their items online. With AXA you can build a policy to cover your business from whatever life throws at you.

For example, under one policy you can get public and products liability, contents insurance, employers’ liability and more.

Why do online retailers need business insurance?

Whether it’s online or off, running any retail business comes with its risks. There could be a problem with one of your products that causes and injury, or a fire that breaks out and causes damage to your stock.

Public liability insurance will protect you if someone is injured by the items that you sell, or if damage is caused to their property because of something you’ve supplied. If you have anyone helping you with your business, employers’ liability can make sure you’re covered if they get hurt or fall ill as a result of working for you.

If you have stock, it’s important that it’s insured properly. AXA’s contents insurance (with optional extras like goods in transit insurance) can provide the level of protection that you need to keep products safe as they are transported to the customer.

Plus, you’ll get a 30% seasonal increase in cover between November and December - or at a time that suits your business – and a choice of additional protection including goods in transit insurance that’ll keep your deliveries safe whether on the road or in the post.

How much is business insurance for online retailers?

How much business insurance costs varies from business to business and is dependent on several different factors. To find out how much your policy will cost you can get a quote online using the button below. Get your quote online and save 10%* off the cost of your policy.

What factors affect the cost of my policy?

• Your occupation can affect the cost of your insurance since occupations that use lots of equipment in their day-to-day operations or use dangerous machinery are consider higher risk.
• How many staff you have will affect your premium as more employees opens to up to more possibilities of claims resulting in negligence or accidental injury.
• Your turnover affects your policy price as a higher turnover suggests that you work with a large volume of clients, expensive contracts, or a combination of both. This means your risk factor for an insurer is higher.

What covers do I need for my online store?

Here are a few of the covers you may need to think about as an online retailer.

Do I need different covers if I also have a premises?

There are two main groups of retailers who sell online:

• Businesses who have a premises but also sell their products online
• Businesses whose sole presence is online

In both cases, businesses will largely need the same types of cover. The main difference would be that a business with a premises may need to consider buildings cover as part of their contents insurance, as well as Employers’ Liability insurance.

Businesses which sell solely online are unlikely to need these two covers.

Do I need business insurance to sell my items on a third-party platform?

For many small businesses who sell their products online, the easiest way to do this is through a third party such as Etsy, eBay, and Amazon.

You may be wondering if you’re required to have business insurance to sell your products on these types of sites and the answer is no. You’re not legally required to have business insurance, nor do these sellers require you to have cover.

However, it is still recommended that you have business insurance. If you choose to sell your items on a third-party site and a customer ends up accidentally injured, ill, or their items are damaged in transit, and you don’t have insurance then you will be solely responsible for footing the bill.

Don’t take the risk of something going wrong, make sure you’ve got business insurance sorted today.

^*This discount is applied automatically and lasts for the lifetime of your policy.