After the unprecedented hard times of the past two years, we are staring to see the feint glimmer of growth throughout the UK. Small snippets of news, like JCB deciding to hire an additional 200 staff to cope with growing demand is welcome.

In the commercial insurance world, we are seeing growth signs in two ways. Firstly, we are seeing for the first time in 18 months a big increase in new business enquiries. This is not simply existing companies looking to compare business insurance, but brand new ventures starting from scratch and they have been few and far between recently.

Secondly, we are seeing existing businesses looking to expand and as a result they are moving to new premises. Having moved ourselves a few times in the past 10 years, we know that this is not an easy process. There is a list as long as your arm of things you need to think about, do and keep a close eye on.

One point you must consider is in relation to your business insurance. Your policy terms and price are based on many different factors, but the three main ones are. What you do, where you are and what values you need to insure for.

Commercial insurance companies have spent years and years building up detailed statistics on the likelihood of break-ins, fires, floods, storms, subsidence etc depending on where you trade from. So, it is natural that if you move premises you need to notify your insurers.

If you are sensible you will have a business insurance broker that acts as the conduit between you and the ultimate insurer. As soon as you have a rough idea of the date you will more and the full address of the premises you re going to then you should give them a call to let them know.

The best thing to do is to ask them if there is any increase in premium or charges. If you are going to a higher risk area then an insurer may charge and additional premium. If you feel this is unreasonable, then is the perfect time to look around for a different insurance policy. And if the broker tries to charge you an "administration fee" for making the change then you should definitely walk away. The broker should do this service for nothing, you would be amazed at how many think they can charge you £50 to make a simple change.

In most cases, you will get revised documents issued an d be asked to complete a simple "change of address" questionnaire. This will ask about construction, security, past flooding etc for the new address. Assuming all the questions are answered OK and your sums insured do not increase then that is really all you need to do. Compared to the other legal and local authority notifications you may have to go through, getting your business insurance changed is relatively easy.

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