No shop. Still a stockroom.
Cover for online and e-commerce retailers: stock held somewhere, goods in transit, and a website that is the whole shopfront.
Online retail insurance
Usually includes
Stock
Goods in transit
Products liability
Cyber & data
Business interruption
Premises & contents
One
conversation.
You explain the business once, and we take it from there.
Bespoke service
for your business
No two businesses are the same, so we start with yours rather than with a template.
Everything
quoted together.
The premises, your stock, your liability and the trade you would lose, priced in one go rather than piece by piece.
Know your cover
What is online retail insurance?
Selling online removes the shop and leaves everything else. There is still stock, held in a unit, a garage or a fulfilment centre. There is still liability for what you sold, and it reaches a retailer as much as a maker. What changes is where the exposure concentrates: goods spend their riskiest hours in transit, and the website is not a marketing asset but the entire means of trading. Cover is built around stock and transit, with products liability and cyber alongside.
It covers the stock
Wherever it is held, including a home, a self-storage unit or a third-party warehouse.
It covers the transit
Goods on the way to a customer, and the returns coming back to you.
It does not cover a platform suspension
An account closed by a marketplace is a commercial dispute rather than an insured event.
Who it’s for
Whatever you ship.
✓
Own-website retailers
Trading from your own store, holding your own stock and despatching yourself.
✓
Marketplace sellers
Selling through a platform, where its rules shape the business as much as yours do.
✓
Home-based online sellers
Stock in a spare room or a garage, which a household policy will not answer for.
✓
Retailers using third-party fulfilment
Stock held and shipped by somebody else, which changes whose insurance answers.
✓
Dropshippers and print-on-demand
No stock, but products liability and consumer obligations that still fall to you.
✓
Subscription box businesses
Recurring despatch at volume, with a peak every cycle.
What we cover
Cover built around your despatch.
We ask what you sell, where the stock sits and who ships it before we approach anyone. Then show you what’s available, and you decide what fits.
Stock
Goods wherever they are held, including a home, a storage unit or a fulfilment provider.
Goods in transit
Outbound orders and inbound returns, whether you ship them or a carrier does.
Products liability
Harm caused by something you sold, which reaches you as the seller even where somebody else made it.
Cyber & data
The store, the customer data, the payment flow and the diverted payment after a convincing email.
Business interruption
The sales lost when the store, the stock or a platform you depend on stops working.
Premises & contents
The unit, the packing bench, the racking and the equipment you pick and pack with.
Public liability
Injury or damage to somebody else, including at a market, a pop-up or a customer collection.
Employers’ liability
Required by law from your first employee, including anyone packing at peak.
Legal expenses
Recovering money from a supplier, and defending a consumer or an intellectual property complaint.
Who this cover tends to suit.
This cover is generally bought by retailers selling online, from a home-based seller with stock in a spare room to a business running a unit and a packing team. Not every part will apply to every business, so tell us how you’re set up and we’ll show you what’s relevant.
Worth knowing
Check the details before you choose.
A household policy will not answer business stock
Stock at home is the most common gap in this trade. Most household wordings exclude business use outright, so the goods in the spare room are uninsured until they are declared.
Products liability follows the seller
Selling somebody else’s product does not remove you from the chain of supply, and it matters most where the maker is outside the UK. Being the importer can put you in the maker’s position.
Fulfilment changes whose cover answers
If a third party holds and ships your stock, their contract decides what they are responsible for, and it is usually less than owners assume. Send us the terms.
A platform is a dependency, not an asset
Business interruption can respond to your own systems failing. An account suspended by a marketplace is a commercial matter rather than an insured event.
Every channel is different.
Selling from your own store and selling through a marketplace don’t carry the same risk, so we ask different questions for each.
Own-website retail
Marketplace selling
Home-based selling
Storage unit stock
Third-party fulfilment
Dropshipping
Print on demand
Subscription boxes
Importing
Own-brand products
Returns handling
Peak trading
Markets and pop-ups
Wholesale to trade
International shipping
Card payments
Own-website retail
Marketplace selling
Home-based selling
Storage unit stock
Third-party fulfilment
Dropshipping
Print on demand
Subscription boxes
Importing
Own-brand products
Returns handling
Peak trading
Markets and pop-ups
Wholesale to trade
International shipping
Card payments
Why Vara
Bespoke service for you & your business,
without the big-firm minimum.
01
Where the stock sits comes first
Home, unit or fulfilment provider are three different presentations, and the first is the one most often uninsured. We establish it before anything else.
02
Importing gets flagged
Bringing goods in can put you in the manufacturer’s position for liability purposes. We ask rather than assume you are only a reseller.
03
Transit is treated as the main exposure
For an online retailer the goods are at their most vulnerable in a van. We size it against your despatch volumes rather than as an afterthought.
04
We present the risk right
Product mix, stock location, despatch volumes, channels and claims history. How it’s framed changes what you pay.
You talk to a person. The machines do the typing.
On a policy that assumes there is a shop? Leave your details and we’ll call you straight back. One conversation covers the lot.
What the review covers
We go through the policy you have now, so you can see what it does and doesn’t cover against stock held away from a shop, goods in transit and the products liability that follows what you sell.
We point out the terms that catch online retailers out most often, household-policy exclusions for stock at home and fulfilment-contract gaps among them, so you can check yours.
We approach insurers on our panel who write online retail, and come back with what they’ll offer.
We explain each option in plain English, including what it doesn’t cover.
If it’s not a risk we can place, we’ll tell you straight away rather than leave you waiting.
No obligation to switch. You decide what fits.
Rather not wait? Call us on 0333 091 3663
Good to know
Online retail insurance questions, answered straight.
What insurance does an online retailer need?
Is my stock covered if I keep it at home?
Do I need products liability if I did not make anything?
What if a courier loses or damages an order?
Who insures stock at a fulfilment centre?
Am I covered if my website goes down?
What happens at peak trading?
Do I need cover for markets and pop-ups?
Vara Commercial Insurance · 0333 091 3663
Vara is a trading name of Koral AI Operating Company Limited. Vara is an appointed representative of Innovative Risk Labs Ltd, under Firm Reference Number 1060955. Innovative Risk Labs Ltd is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, under FRN 609155. We are registered in England and Wales under Registered Company Number 17256222. Registered office: 167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London, W1W 5PF.