All Risks vs Business Contents, which one do you need?

Your equipment is the business. The laptops, the tools, the salon chairs, the stock on the shelves, the AV rig, the instruments, the till. Whatever your trade, there is a pile of expensive things you cannot work without, and the day a bad one takes them out is the day the work stops.

So you go to insure them, and you hit two cover names that sound like they overlap: All Risks and Business Contents. The product pages are clear enough on their own, but the question nobody answers cleanly is which one you actually need, or whether you need both. Pick wrong and you find out at claim time, which is the worst possible moment to learn your cover stopped at the front door.

Here is the plain version, with the one question that settles it.

The short answer

The deciding question is simple: where is your equipment?

• Equipment that travels with you, to client sites, in the van, to a venue, abroad, belongs under All Risks.
• Equipment that stays at a fixed premises, a shop, office, workshop, studio or unit, belongs under Business Contents.

That is the whole comparison in one line. Everything below is detail on what each one actually covers, where the traps are, and how to tell which side of the line your business sits on. Plenty of businesses sit on both sides and need both, and that is normal, not a sales pitch.

One thing to be clear on up front: these are opt-in Sections, not a bundle. There is no single policy that quietly includes everything. You pick the Sections that fit how you actually work and skip the rest, which is the point.

Where the line really sits

Most businesses are a mix, so the honest way to decide is to picture your equipment on a normal working week and ask where each piece spends its time.

A high-street salon's equipment never leaves the building. The chairs, the dryers, the stock of products, the till and the fit-out are all at the premises, all day, every day. That is a Business Contents business through and through.

A mobile beauty therapist with the same kit in a case in the boot is the opposite. Their equipment lives on the move, between clients' homes and the car. That is an All Risks business.

A small marketing agency might run laptops, monitors and AV equipment from an office, and Business Contents covers all of it where it sits. But the moment two of those laptops go out to a client pitch or an event, they have left the four walls, and Business Contents stops at the door. That agency wants Business Contents for the office and All Risks for the equipment that travels. Two Sections, one decision each.

So it is rarely a clean either/or. It is "which pieces stay, which pieces move", and you cover each accordingly.

What Business Contents actually covers

Business Contents protects the movable things you use to trade at your premises: equipment, computers, tools, stock, furniture, and the fixtures and fittings you have installed. The building itself is insured separately under buildings cover.

The core protects against named events. Theft following a forced break-in, fire, flood, escape of water, storm, impact, riot and malicious damage are all in. So if thieves force your back door overnight and clear the stock, or a pipe bursts over the weekend and floods the office, that is what this Section is for. Most items are settled new for old, so you are not docked for age and wear, and the cover is built to get you trading again fast rather than leaving you on hold.

Two points worth knowing. First, accidental damage, the everyday drops, knocks and spills that are not tied to a named peril, is available as an option on top of the core, not always baked in. Second, stock is usually settled at what it cost you rather than new for old, which is the sensible basis for goods you were going to sell anyway.

What it will not do is follow your equipment off-site. The day you carry a laptop to a client or load tools into the van, Business Contents is no longer the cover doing the work.

What All Risks actually covers

All Risks does what the name says. Instead of a short list of named perils, it covers sudden, accidental loss or damage to your specified equipment, wherever it is, unless something is specifically excluded. A laptop dropped on a client's stairs, a tool stolen from the van after a break-in, a box of AV equipment crushed in transit to an event. Theft is covered too, subject to sensible security.

The big difference from Business Contents is geography. All Risks comes with geographical limits you set: premises only, the UK, across Europe, or worldwide. You choose the territory to match where the work actually takes you, so if you ship equipment abroad or shoot on location overseas, the cover goes with it. Higher-value items are usually listed individually so they are insured for the right amount, lower-value equipment can often be covered as an unspecified total, and cover is reinstated after a claim so you are protected for the rest of the year.

It has edges too. Wear and tear and gradual deterioration are out, mechanical or electrical breakdown is a separate cover, and theft from an unattended vehicle is only covered if someone actually forced their way in. Leaving equipment on show in an unlocked car is not a clean claim, so the usual care still applies.

If your equipment is specifically cameras, lenses and production gear, the same logic holds but there are niche specifics worth their own read. The camera and production gear guide covers that angle in full.

The "tools" allowance trap

Here is the one that catches people who think they are already covered.

A lot of general policies mention a small "tools" allowance, a modest sum thrown in for portable equipment. It sounds like it has you handled. It does not. That allowance was sized for a tradesperson's drill and a bag of hand tools, not for a full working setup: a kitted-out salon case, a stack of laptops, an instrument collection, a pallet of stock, a professional equipment load.

If your portable equipment is worth real money, that token allowance leaves you badly short the day it goes missing. The fix is not to lean on it and hope. It is to insure the real value of your travelling equipment properly under All Risks, where it is specified and covered for what it actually costs.

Insure for replacement value, and the cost of getting it wrong

Both Sections settle on a reinstatement basis. The point is to put a damaged or stolen item right by replacing it with one of similar kind and quality, not to argue you down to scrap value and not to gift you an upgrade. To make that work, the value you insure for has to be the real cost to replace the equipment today.

This is where under-insuring bites, and it bites quietly. If you insure an item for less than its full replacement value to shave a little off the premium, a claim on that item is cut back in proportion, and each item is judged on its own. Insure a £4,000 setup for £2,000 and a total-loss claim can pay roughly half, exactly when you needed all of it. The few pounds you saved up front are dwarfed by the shortfall at the moment it matters.

So list your equipment honestly and value it at what it would cost to replace now. That is the single biggest thing that decides whether a claim puts you back to work or leaves you out of pocket.

One, the other, or both?

Run it back to the simple question and most businesses sort themselves out fast:

• Fixed premises, nothing leaves. A shop, café, salon or workshop where the equipment and stock stay put. Business Contents is your cover.
• Mobile, everything travels. A mobile therapist, a tradesperson on client sites, a crew working on location. All Risks is your cover.
• A base, plus equipment that moves. An office or studio with kit that also goes out to clients, events or transit. You want both: Business Contents for what stays, All Risks for what travels.

Neither one stands in for liability. If the risk is injuring someone or damaging their property while you work, that is Public Liability, a separate Section, and the public liability guide for the self-employed walks through when you need it. Equipment cover protects your things; liability protects everyone else's.

What it costs, and how claims work

We are not going to hide the number behind a form. What you pay depends on the equipment you list, where you need it covered, and how you work, so the cost guide is worth a read if you want the full picture. There is a single £25 admin fee, and that is the only one. No mystery add-ons.

Getting covered is three steps: answer a few quick questions, see your price, and you're covered the same day. No forms in the post, no waiting on a callback.

caremate™ builds your quote in minutes, in plain English, no broker hold music. Cover is arranged with Kovrilo and underwritten by established insurers, so it pays out when it should. And if equipment ever goes missing or gets broken, a real in-house team handles the claim directly, so a bad day doesn't turn into a second job chasing a call centre.

Where careless™ fits

You bought the equipment and you earn with it. You don't need a lecture on perils and geographical limits, you need cover that matches where your equipment actually lives and a straight answer when something goes wrong.

That is the whole idea. The equipment that stays is covered at the premises, the equipment that travels is covered wherever the work takes it, and if the worst happens there's a real person sorting the claim while you get back to it. See your price in a few minutes, no obligation: get a quote, or start with All Risks cover and add Business Contents if you also hold equipment at a premises.