Coverage for your store, stock and customers.
Tell us what you sell, where you operate and what you keep on hand. We’ll help you compare coverage options that fit.
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WHO WE INSURE
Retail types we place.
Every retail type below is placed by a HIFA commercial broker. Not listed? Still worth a call.
Boutiques
Boutiques and Apparel
Seasonal stock, fitting-room theft, and a lease that sets your limits.
Grocery
Grocery and Convenience
Long hours, refrigeration, and spoilage when the power goes.
Electronics
Electronics Stores
High value in a small footprint. Theft is the whole conversation.
Personal Care
Salons and Personal Care Retail
Treatment liability, and equipment you cannot trade a day without.
Specialty
Specialty Retail
Spoilage, recall, and the neighbour’s sprinkler above your stock.
Pharmacy
Pharmacies
Regulated stock and professional liability alongside ordinary property.
Plaza Stores
Mall and Plaza Stores
Your biggest risk is often the unit next door, not your own.
Independent
Independent Retailers
One owner, one location, and nobody else reading the insurance clause.
NOT SURE WHAT YOUR LEASE REQUIRES?
Send us the lease and your stock figure.
The insurance and indemnity sections of a retail lease set your limits. A broker reads them against your peak inventory and improvement values.
Want to talk now?
WHO THIS IS FOR
Is this you?
If any of these describe your business, a commercial broker is worth the conversation.
1
You lease a retail unit and your landlord requires specific limits and additional insured wording
2
You carry high-value or easily resold inventory — phones, electronics, jewellery, designer goods
3
You have heavy customer foot traffic through the store and the entrance
4
Your seasonal stock peaks dwarf the average you carry for the rest of the year
5
You sell online alongside the storefront, or you run more than one location
WHAT CAN GO WRONG
The claims we see most in retail.
Common risks
Customer slips and falls in store or at the entrance
Theft, shoplifting and after-hours break-ins
Inventory damaged by fire, smoke or water, often originating in an adjoining unit
Loss of income while the store or the wider centre is closed
Employee dishonesty and till shortages
Damage to the tenant improvements you paid for
Equipment breakdown affecting refrigeration, POS or security systems
A cyber or payment-card data incident affecting customer information
Coverage to discuss
Business Interruption
Stock and Inventory
Tenant Improvements
Crime
Equipment Breakdown
Availability, limits and extensions vary by insurer and by operation. A broker confirms what applies to yours.
WHAT WE’LL ASK YOU
The questions that change the policy.
An online form asks what you are. We ask how you operate before approaching insurers.
01
What do you sell, and what is the value of the highest-value item on the floor?
02
What is your peak inventory value and in which months does it occur?
03
Are you standalone, in a plaza or in a mall, and what does the lease require you to insure?
04
What security is in place — monitored alarm, cameras, after-hours protection?
05
Do you sell online, ship orders or trade off-site, and do you ship to the United States?
06
Are there other locations under the same ownership, and are they on the same policy?
Rather work through these with a broker?
REAL CLAIM EXAMPLES
Two situations worth understanding.
Customer slip at the entrance
Rain tracks in through the front door on a busy Saturday and a customer falls just inside the entrance, fracturing a wrist. A claim follows several months later, naming both you and the landlord. Commercial General Liability may respond to defence costs and to damages awarded. Where the lease names the landlord as additional insured, the wording on your certificate determines whether that extends to them.
Illustrative only. Whether a policy responds depends on its wording, limits and exclusions. Defence costs may erode the limit, and the common area usually depends on the lease.
Water loss closes the store
A supply line in the unit above fails overnight and the ceiling drains into your sales floor. Stock, fixtures and the build-out you paid for are soaked, and the unit is unusable for five weeks while it dries and is repaired. Property coverage may respond to the stock and to the tenant improvements, and business interruption to the income lost and the rent that keeps running. What you recover depends on the stock and improvement limits you carry.
Business interruption responds for a stated indemnity period, and recovery for water damage originating in another unit depends on the policy wording.
WHY HIFA
What a specialist broker does differently.
We value the stock and the build-out separately, and honestly
The fit-out you paid for is not on your landlord’s policy — it is yours to insure, and it is routinely left at whatever figure was typed in the first year. Plaza and mall leases dictate limits, additional insured and waiver of subrogation wording, so we read the lease before we set the number. The stock figure gets the same treatment, because on many retail policies it is still the one from the day the policy was written.
We size stock to your December, not your June
A store carrying several times its usual stock in November is underinsured for the weeks that matter most, if nobody asks. A seasonal peak endorsement raises the stock limit for those months, so the busiest weeks of the year are not the least protected. It is a small change to a policy and it is routinely missed.
We treat the online side and the floor as one business
Shipping, off-site sales and stored payment data change the liability and cyber conversation, and many retail policies were written as though the storefront was the whole business. Where you ship matters as well — product liability into the United States is rated and worded differently. We ask at the submission, not after a claim.
WHAT AFFECTS THE PRICE
Two shops on the same street can price very differently.
What affects your premium
Type of merchandise, and whether it is high-theft product
Building construction, sprinkler protection and location within the centre
Peak and average inventory values
Annual sales, and the proportion sold online or into the United States
Security measures including alarm monitoring and camera coverage
Lease obligations assumed from the landlord
Replacement cost of tenant improvements, fixtures and fittings
Claims history, and how long the store has traded under current ownership
What to have ready
A copy of the lease, particularly the insurance and indemnity sections
Description of goods sold, including anything with elevated liability
Peak and average inventory values
Replacement cost of leasehold improvements and fixtures
Annual sales and e-commerce split
Alarm and camera details, including whether monitoring is central-station
A list of every location trading under the same ownership
Loss runs for the last five years, if your current broker can supply them
WHERE WE WORK
The western GTA.
Storefronts and plazas across Burlington, Oakville, Milton, Mississauga and Hamilton — downtown main streets, mall units and plaza retail.
Common questions
What retailers ask.
What does my mall or plaza lease actually require me to insure?
If a fire starts next door, whose insurance pays for my loss?
How do I cover inventory that spikes over the holidays?
I also sell online. Does that change my coverage?
Is shoplifting covered?
What is equipment breakdown coverage in a retail setting?
READY TO TALK?
A retail policy that reflects the stock actually on the floor.
Send the lease, your peak inventory values and what your policy carries for improvements. A broker comes back with what the market will offer.
Want to talk now?