Hello,

I am in the process of starting an online business whereby I will be selling small quantities of organic wine imported from South America via an online website.

I will be storing the wine, no more than 900 bottles in my garage and will have the required licenses to do so. I rent the property and have the landlord’s permission to run the business from the proerty providing it doesn't affect his buildings insurance and if it does I will pay the extra.

I do not require planning permission (confirmed) for the venture as I will only be using the garage for storage purposes and the rest of the house will remain residential.

My question is will this affect the buildings insurance and is there any other insurance I will need? apart from obviously personal liability insurance.

I just want to make sure the business is completely legal and legitimate, so I would be really grateful for any advice on this specific matter.

Thank you in advance.
Lee

I think an ideal business location is must for any business. there are many web portal local services where you can consult for a perfect location.

I don't say anything about it, but you should contact the insurance company from which the builiding insurance policy started or read the insurance policy terms and conditions.

Most insurers are not happy with running a business from home. However when I was with Esure and the wife started her business I called them and they where OK to cover us as she never had more than £2,000 of stock stored at home.

They also wanted to know if any buyers visited the home and we too delivered on-line so had no issues there. The risk is if you don't say anything and you need to make a claim for any other reason and a loss adjusters sees the business they may refuse to pay the claim.

Or worse still if your business caused the damage they would more than likely not pay the claim and put you on the fraudulent claims database!

Be up front with insurance its not worth the risk. If they wont cover your business you may be able to get business cover to cover the business at the home address if that makes sense and you can usually add in employers liabilities as well as the public liabilities.

Hope this helps