22 Aug Plant, Equipment & Contents: The forgotten assets when it comes to Insurance

Plant, Equipment and Contents: The forgotten assets when it comes to Insurance

Say your property has a fire and suffers a significant loss. You know the building is adequately insured for $15,000,000, but what about the estimated $10,000,000 of plant, equipment, and contents within the building?

• Are they insured?
• Are they insured adequately?
• Is there a current asset register?

While the rebuild period can be extremely distressing and inconvenient, at least you can rent another building. If the plant and equipment are lost, there is no such luxury. So often, we come across plant, equipment, and contents valuations having never been carried out or updated for an extended period.

Many businesses consider it appropriate to have their buildings insured, whilst not placing the same importance on their plant, equipment, and contents. All businesses, no matter their size, require current asset registers and insurance valuations to support any potential under-insurance claim. It does not matter how new or old the assets may be at the time of loss; they will all need to be replaced.

As well as potential under-insurance, are you aware of plant, equipment, and contents valuation issues that will significantly impact the situation at the time of loss, such as:

• Lead time to purchase/install these assets
• Freight and installation costs
• Changes in technology
• Cost and availability of new spare parts
• No asset register for reviewing
• The fluctuation of the Australian dollar
• Does the replacement for these assets come from Europe, China, or manufactured locally?

In addition to replacing the plant, equipment, and contents at the time of loss, consideration also has to be given to all the services to those assets including electricity, gas, water, and air, which without, you don’t have an operational business. It’s also common for plant and equipment to have become discontinued and obsolete over time, making it difficult to replace in the event of an incident.

Are your  plant, equipment, and contents adequately insured? Don’t find out the hard way.

Throughout Australia, Andrew Nock Valuers value buildings, plant, equipment, contents, and mobile plant. Contact the team any time to arrange pre-proposal inspections or to discuss any valuation issues you may have.

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