Frequently Asked Questions

We need your permission to contact you regarding your incomplete orders.   If for some reason you don't complete your order,  we want to be able to contact you and make sure that you are understanding your quote clearly and see if there any ways that we can help.  We can't do this  unless you check "Yes" to this question. 

Your estimated gross annual revenues figures are used to rate the premium for your policy. We use this estimate to help generate the premium charged.   This infomration is kept private.  

Please list the name of the person who will be responsible for the administration of your insurance policy. In the event of any news or changes to the policy, this will be the person that we will contact.

Please note that the person who listed as the applicant will become the Named Insured on the policy.

The Named Insured has special rights and duties. These rights and duties are explained in General Rules of the policy wording.

Individual

If you are applying as an individual, please list your full legal name in the Applicant’s name box.

Partnership or Joint Venture

If you are applying as a Partnership or Joint Venture please list the full legal name for yourself, your partners or co-venturers.

Trade Name/Unincorporated Company  

If you are applying as a company that is not incorporated please list your full legal name and your unincorporated company name by including the acronym dba (doing business as). An example of how to correctly list your name in this scenario is below:
Jane Doe dba ABC Industries 

Corporation

If you are applying as a Corporation, please list the full legal name of your corporation including the company’s designation (i.e. Inc. Ltd, Corp.)

This is the date that you would  like your coverage to start. Make sure it is within 30 days from now.

All office contents of every description used in the conduct of the Insured business or profession that remain at the insured location.

Your insured address is where your business contents are located and where the majority of your business operations are done. 

If you want any mail correspondence to be sent to an address other than your insured address, please include a separate mailing address. 

There are various deductibles under the Workplace policy. The deductible will depend on the coverage.  For example, the deductible for theft of office property is $500.  For a complete list of the applicable deductibles, plesae reference the PDF proposal that you can download at the end of the online application, prior to completing purchase.

Tenants Legal Liability (TLL) covers you(the insured's), legal liability in causes where the tenant causes damage to the rented property. If you rent a portion of an office in a bulidng and you have a fire then your tenants legal liability will cover the damages to the area you occupy. 

It is important that you have a good idea of the reconstruction cost of the area that you are renting and purchase TLL coverage that would cover these reconstruction costs. If your TLL is $100,000 and damages exceed that amount then you could find yourself facing a huge financial burden. 

These are permanent additions or changes made to a building by a lessee at his or her own expense that may not legally be removed.   If you have made these types of improvements to your office it will be your responsiblity to insure these improvements. 

For example if you added some permanent cabinetry to the your office space that were not provided by the landlord, you should be insuring these improvements under tenants improvements.  Your landlord will expect yout to you have your own coverage for this.

The endorsement covers the Insured's legal liability for damage to or loss of hired automobiles as defined in the policy.

This is an extension of business interruption coverage.  It provides coverage for the  total amount of payroll expenses for all the employees of an insured business. This does not include payroll for executives, contract employees, officers of the company, and department managers.  Please note that this is not included under business interruption coverage unless the ordinary payroll coverage is included.

 You can download a sample copy of the Commercial Package Policy and Commercial General Liability Policy. These policies detail all of the coverages, limits, and exclusions that can be included in the policy.

Please note that each policy purchased  will be sepcified to your application and may differ from these sample policies.  These policies are only meant as a sample and do not respresent the final policy you will purchase.

Equipment breakdown insurance covers the sudden and accidental, physical damage to equipment that requires its repair or replacement. It applies to equipment in the following categories:

1. Electrical
2. Air Conditioning and Refrigeration
3. Boiler and Pressure Vessel
4. Computer and Communications
5. Mechanical
6. Renewable and Alternative Energy
7. Production Systems

The Workplace policy does not cover loss or damage caused by:

• Electrical arcing (A luminous discharge of current that is formed when a strong current jumps a gap in a circuit or between twoelectrodes)
• Mechanical breakdown, and
• Explosion of boilers and pressure vessels

You will need to purchase an equipment breakdown policy to cover these types of exposures.

This provides coverage for Liability of  an employer for an error or omission in the administration of an employee benefit program, such as failure to advise employees of benefit programs.

This coverage extends to crime losses that are not insured under the basic Workplace policy. Briefly described, commercial crime insurance covers money, securities and other property against a variety of criminal acts, such as employee theft, robbery, forgery, and computer fraud.

This coverage is designed to protect against all sums that the insured shall become legally obligated to pay for bodily injury, property damage or personal injury to third parties arising out of your business operations. It includes the cost of a lawyer to defend you.

This policy excludes liability arising out of the use of motor vehicles, aircraft (including UAV and drones) or watercraft.

The commercial general liability also includes coverage for tenant legal liability (coverage for your professionally used rented premises) in the amount of $1,000,000.  Employers Liability (Canadian employees only) and Non-Owned Auto Liability are also included with a $1,000,000 limit. The commercial general liability / tenant legal liability coverages would not apply to personal residence or any activities outside of those of professional operations. 

This policy is subject to the Field of Entertainment endorsement.

This is a form of insurance coverage that replaces business income lost as a result of an event that interrupts the operations of the business.  The coverage provided under this policy is a Profits Form.  This means that the coverage continues to pay benefits until your business returns to its normal, pre-interruption level, up to your policy limits. There is a 24 hour deductible applied to this coverage.  Please also note that coverage will conclude 12 months after the insured damage has occurred. 

A person or organization not automatically included as an insured under an insurance policy who is included or added as an insured under the policy at the request of the named insured. A named insured's impetus for providing additional insured status to others may be a desire to protect the other party because of a close relationship with that party (e.g., wanting to protect church members performing services for the insured church) or to comply with a contractual agreement requiring the named insured to do so (e.g., project owners, customers, or owners of property leased by the named insured).

In liability insurance, additional insured status is commonly used in conjunction with an indemnity agreement between the named insured (the indemnitor) and the party requesting additional insured status (the indemnitee). Having the rights of an insured under its indemnitor's commercial general liability (CGL) policy is viewed by most indemnitees as a way of backing up the promise of indemnification. If the indemnity agreement proves unenforceable for some reason, the indemnitee may still be able to obtain coverage for its liability by making a claim directly as an additional insured under the indemnitor's CGL policy.

In property insurance, additional insured status is most often used in conjunction with a premises lease agreement between the named insured as the lessee and the owner of the leased building, in which the insured tenant is required to purchase insurance on the leased building and name the building owner as an additional insured on the insurance policy with respect to the leased building.

When a monitored theft alarm is triggered, a signal is sent to a central monitoring station.  This station will confirm the alarm.  If the alarm is confirmed they will notify the appropriate emergency services (i.e. Police).  Only answer to yes to this question if you have confirmed with your theft alarm provider that your alarm is monitored.

When a monitored fire alarm is triggered, a signal is sent to a central monitoring station.  This station will confirm the alarm.  If the alarm is confirmed they will notify the appropriate Fire Department.  Only answer to yes to this question if you have confirmed with your fire alarm provider that your alarm is monitored.

The Miscellaneous property floater offers protection for business property that is not contained at a fixed location.   If you purchase this coverage, the property is covered anywhere in Canada and the continental US.

A locked vehicle warranty requires that for any insured property being carried in a vehicle, reasonable measures be taken to securely close the vehicle such as closing and locking doors and windows. If any loss occurs to such items as a result of theft, there must be visible signs of forced entry, such as a broken window or scratches inside of the locking mechanism.   If you are not able to prove that there was forceable entry to the vehicle, the insurance company can deny the claim. 

This is a claim that has resulted from your company’s operations.  This would include claims that resulted in an claim payout and those that were uninsured or denied.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t provide you with a quote. It just means that we can’t provide a quote for you online. Please contact our office and someone will contact you to arrange a quote.

Replacement Cost: this is the cost to replace the property/equipment with the same or other similar property of comparable material and quality used for the same purpose without deduction for depreciation.  The equipment insured under the WORKplace program will be valued at replacement cost in the event of an insured claim.

The policy is subject to an 80% Co- Insured Clause.  This is a clause in an insurance policy requiring an insured to carry a certain percentage (usually 80, 90 or 100%) of insurance in relation to the value of the property insured.  The insured shares in losses to the extent that he is underinsured at the time of loss.  Under the terms of this clause, property must be insured in an amount equal to or exceeding 80% of its insurable value. Failure to do so will result in a penalty in the event of a loss. The manner in which the 80% co-insurance clause would operate is illustrated in the following hypothetical example.

Example:

A) Property of Every Description (POED) is insured on a replacement cost basis for $60,000.

B) Actual cost to replace the POED is $100,000.

C) Minimum amount of insurance required to satisfy the 80% co-insurance clause is $80,000. (80% of B)

D) Amount of loss $50,000.

Application of co-insurance clause:

FORMULA:

Amount of insurance carried   X  Amount of loss  =  Recovery

Amount of insured required

$60,000. (A)  X  $50,000 (D) = $37,500

$80,000. (C)

This example clearly illustrates the necessity of insurance to value as the insured would only receive $37,500 of the $50,000 loss from the insurance company. Note the amount of recovery never exceeds the amount of insurance carried. For this reason it is important to insure for 100% of the insurable value in order to have enough coverage in the event of a total loss

If you have any questions regarding how your equipment will be valued, please contact our office.

Manufacturing options involve the production of products using labour and machines, tools, chemical and biological  processing or formulation.

This is a clause in an insurance policy requiring an insured to carry a certain percentage (usually 80, 90 or 100%) of insurance in relation to the value of the property insured.  The insured shares in losses to the extent that he is underinsured at the time of loss.  Under the terms of this clause, property must be insured in an amount equal to or exceeding 80% of its insurable value. Failure to do so will result in a penalty in the event of a loss. The manner in which the 80% co-insurance clause would operate is illustrated in the following hypothetical example.

Example:

A) Property of Every Description (POED) is insured on a replacement cost basis for $60,000.

B) Actual cost to replace the POED is $100,000.

C) Minimum amount of insurance required to satisfy the 80% co-insurance clause is $80,000. (80% of B)

D) Amount of loss $50,000.

Application of co-insurance clause:

FORMULA:

Amount of insurance carried   X  Amount of loss  =  Recovery

Amount of insured required

$60,000. (A)  X  $50,000 (D) = $37,500

$80,000. (C)

This example clearly illustrates the necessity of insurance to value as the insured would only receive $37,500 of the $50,000 loss from the insurance company. Note the amount of recovery never exceeds the amount of insurance carried. For this reason it is important to insure for 100% of the insurable value in order to have enough coverage in the event of a total loss.

Please review the below three categories to see if your building fits into one of the following categories:

Your building is likely Fire Resistive construction, if it meets the following criteria:

• New building (i.e. 1990 or newer)
• High rise office building and condos (over 75 ft)
• Buildings with structural steel frame that is fireproofed with masonry, concrete or other non-combustible materials
• Exterior walls made of solid masonry materials (e.g. reinforced concrete, masonry, steel)
• Roof, frame and floors concrete

Your building is likely Masonry construction, if it meets the following criteria:

• You are located in a shopping centre, strip mall, low rise office building, warehouses
• Exterior walls made of masonry materials (e.g. brick, concrete, tile, and stone
• Roof, frame and floors steel and concrete

Your building is likely Frame construction, if it meets the following criteria:

• Your office is located in a habitation type building (i.e free standing homes, low rise condos, typically 3-4 stories max
• Exterior walls made of wood, often covered with brick/stone veneer or metal attached to the wood 
• Roof, frame and floors wood

If you do not think that the building you work out of fits into any of the above categories, you should choose other.

Your realtor, landlord or property manager should also be able to confirm the construction of the building.

You should estimate your total revenues received before any deductions or allowances for the next 12 months.  You may be asked to verify this figure at the end of your policy term.

The realtor that leased the space should be able to confirm the square footage of your office.  If they do not have this information, the property manager or landlord should be able to also provide this detail.

The realtor that leased the space should be able to confirm the square footage of your office.  If they do not have this information, the property manager or landlord should be able to also provide this detail. It is acceptable to be within 5% of the actual figure. 

Yes, we can still arrange a quote for you.  It just means that we can’t provide a quote for you online.  Please contact our office and someone will contact you to arrange a quote.

No, unfortunately if you own the building you work out of, you will not be eligible to obtain insurance online.  We can assist you with obtaining a quote through our office offline.  Please contact our office and someone will contact you to arrange a quote.