If you're working form home, you will be invalidating your insurance policies if you do not tell your insurance company that you are operating a business from the premises. Providing you are not bringing clients to the property it is unlikely to cause any problems with the majority of companies, but now is an ideal time to reassess your insurance requirements.

• Is your business equipment covered by your household policy?
• Are you covered for portable business items - mobile phones, laptop computers etc
• Do you have public insurance? You will need this for any accidental damage caused whilst carrying out your work.
• Employer's liabilty insurance is compulsary if you employ anyone, even casually (or even yourself if you've formed a limited company)
• If you hold any stock at home you will need cover whilst in the home and in transit. You may also require products liability insurance
• If you are providing a service, you may require professional indemnity insurance(PII).

Insurantz.com is the latest service offered by specialist insurer JLT|Online. Focussing on specific insurance areas, in this case the smaller business, they have a wealth of experience and expertise in providing policies customised to customer’s specific needs.

Moving the entire process online has made finding that perfect policy easier than ever. In fact, there are just four steps between quote and full cover, so in mere minutes a business can have a tailored policy up and running.

Insurantz.com make the following price promises:

• Prices are guaranteed for 24 months
• If premiums go down, yours does too
• They’ll pay double the difference if you find a better deal
• Nothing to pay for 28 days
• Free cancellation within 14 days
• If you make a claim, you don’t pay more
• They don’t charge start-ups extra
• No claims mean lower premiums

*Full details and conditions are available at www.insurantz.com

Quoteline Direct are a fully registered independent insurance broker , who will search their list of top UK companies to find you the cheapest and best prices available.

The on-line home insurance quotation system will give you an indicated price, but won't take your homeworking or home business into account, however, in most cases they will be able to quote normal terms. So whatever your requirements they will be able to offer you a very competitive quotation.

Please complete the on-line quotation forms and then give them a call on the number given on screen to discuss the quotation further.

Tolson Messenger Ltd
Provide a comprehensive home business policy underwritten by Commercial Union, suitable for the majority of office-based businesses, with optional extensions to cover manufacturing style businesses. A free business tax and legal helpline is included in the cost.

They also provide a PII policy with lower levels of cover more suited to the self-employed professionals.

Ask for their free guide to insurance for people working at home.

For further advice or information, phone 0800 374246, fax 0181 741 8361 or write to 148 King Street, London, W6 0QU

Donald Rigg Insurance Brokers Ltdis an insurance brokers who have designed a specific home insurance package for people in non-manual home-based occupations. They agree that a home that is used for business is inherently less likely to be burgled, that any fire or flood will be discovered sooner, and therefore that this is a 'good' risk. They have therefore designed a policy to cover:

• Buildings
• Personal Contents
• Personal effects, jewellery, etc away from the home
• Business Contents
• Business equipment, laptops, mobile phones, etc away from the home
• Extra cost of working engendered by an incident eg. Cost of replacing records, hiring temporary equipment, notifying customers and suppliers of changes of address, etc.
• Public Liability
• Employer's Liability

They would normally expect to cost very little more than your existing home buildings and contents cover to add the homeworking cover.

You can contact them at 32 Halifax Road, Todmorden, Lancashire or Tel 01706 813848 Fax 01706 818469

Norwich Union - Their business insurance has been designed to meet the commercial insurance needs of the self employed, tradesmen, sole traders and businesses with up to 5 employees:

• who work from home,
• whose business is based at home, or
• who work out of a third party site,

but do not own, lease, hire or rent any additional business premises from which they operate. A complete copy of the policy document is available on the site

Cornhill Insurance - Contact your local insurance broker about Cornhill's Complete HomeBusiness insurance policy.

Swinton's Business Insurance policy provides professionals based at home with "competitive rates on comprehensive policies". Online quote service available.

Pavilion Insurance provide a wide range of specialist insurance policies, covering such sectors as music and photography at professional, student and hobby levels, together with cover for laptops, phones and other gadgets.

The products include:

• Cycleguard - bicycle insurance
• Musicguard – musical equipment insurance
• DJguard – insurance for DJs and their equipment
• Gizmoguard – insurance for gizmos and gadgets
• Tackleguard – fishing tackle insurance
• Photoguard – camera insurance
• Liabilityguard – third party liability cover
• Orchestralguard – insurance for orchestral instruments
• Indemnityguard - Photographer indemnity insurance