Build the file for the place, and for what stopping would cost.
Whether you own the building or lease the space decides half the questions, so the first answer sorts your path. The other half is the question most businesses have never been asked out loud: if the doors shut tomorrow, what keeps costing money? Answer both halves once, read the file, and send it when it reads true.
Walk through it like an inspection. Anything wrong, go back and fix it. When it holds up, move it to the form and pick how the reply should arrive.
What a complete property file includes.
Property gets underinsured by rounding down and interruption gets skipped by not asking. This is the set that prevents both.
Own or lease
The owner insures the building and the tenant insures what they put into it – flooring, walls, fixtures. Most leases spell this out, and most tenants read that clause after the loss.
The building, honestly aged
When it went up, and which of the four – roof, wiring, plumbing, heat – has been renewed since. These four questions appear on every property application in Canada.
Rebuild cost, not market price
The land does not burn. What it costs to rebuild the structure is the number the policy needs, and it is rarely the number in your head.
The fullest day
Contents, equipment and stock at their peak – a December floor, not a February one. Limits set on the average day are how underinsurance happens politely.
The protections
Sprinklers, monitored alarms, cameras. Nothing moves a property rate further, and nothing is easier to state wrong by accident.
The bills that keep coming
Rent or mortgage, payroll worth protecting, loans, supplier commitments. Interruption cover exists to pay exactly this list while you rebuild.
The honest restart clock
Weeks, months, or no idea – and whether the business could run from somewhere else meanwhile. The honest answer decides how many months of cover to buy.
Who requires it
A lease clause or a lender letter usually sets minimums before any broker does. Send the clause with the file and the quote meets it the first time.
Equipment breakdown, crime, flood and earthquake – what belongs bolted to this file is what the quote comes back showing, each priced on its own line.
One desk, both halves.
The property questions and the interruption questions land with the same commercial desk, because they are one decision wearing two names. A licensed person replies the next business day, and usually the same day, in the form you pick below.