What does business contents insurance cover?

It covers the movable property of a business against insured damage such as fire, theft, water escape and windstorm. That includes furniture, computers, equipment, machinery, stock and tenant's improvements, and it can extend to customers' goods in your care and to property temporarily off premises, usually to set sublimits.

I rent my space. Doesn't my landlord's insurance cover my contents?

No. A landlord's policy covers the building and the landlord's own property. Your furniture, equipment, stock and the improvements you paid for are yours to insure, and most commercial leases require you to insure them to full replacement cost. The insurance clause in your lease sets the exact requirements.

Who insures leasehold improvements, the tenant or the landlord?

Usually the tenant. Improvements a tenant pays for, such as flooring, partitions, lighting and built-in counters, are typically the tenant's to insure, and many leases say so. Improvements left by a previous tenant can also become your responsibility. They are one of the most commonly under-insured items on a tenant's policy.

Should I choose replacement cost or actual cash value?

Replacement cost, in most cases. It pays to replace with new property of like kind and quality without deducting for age, although many policies pay it only once you actually replace. Actual cash value deducts depreciation, so older equipment and furniture can settle well below what replacing them costs.

Is my stock covered at cost or at selling price?

Most policies value stock at your cost to replace it, not its retail price. Finished goods you have already sold but not delivered can sometimes be insured at selling price by endorsement. Because stock levels and prices change through the year, the limit should be set at your peak or written on a reporting form.

Are my contents covered away from my premises?

Only to the policy's off-premises sublimit, which is usually modest and may apply only to temporary locations like trade shows. Tools and equipment that travel regularly belong on a tools and equipment floater, and goods you ship regularly need cargo or transit cover with a limit per shipment.

Are customers' goods in my care covered?

Not automatically. Customers' property left for repair, cleaning, storage or sale needs a property of others extension or a bailee's cover. Most liability policies exclude damage to property in your care, custody or control, so this is usually insured on the property side. The limit should match the highest value you typically hold.

Does my home insurance cover my home-based business equipment?

Usually only a little, or not at all. Home policies commonly exclude or tightly limit business property, and rarely cover business liability or lost income. A home-based business endorsement or a separate business policy closes the gap. Inventory and equipment away from home typically carry an even lower limit.

How much does business contents insurance cost?

It is priced as a rate per $100 of insured value. The rate depends on your occupancy, the building's construction and fire protection, your theft exposure and location, the valuation basis, sublimits and deductible. An office with computers and furniture prices very differently from a restaurant kitchen or a store full of electronics.

Business Contents Insurance

Everything inside the four walls, including the fit-out you paid for, insured at today's cost.

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In short

Business contents insurance pays to repair or replace the movable property a business owns or is responsible for, such as furniture, computers, equipment, stock and the improvements a tenant has paid for, after insured damage like fire, theft, water escape or windstorm. It is the core property cover for tenants and home-based businesses, and can extend to customers' goods in your care and to property temporarily off your premises.

Last reviewed October 26, 2026

Canadian insurers we compare for contents and property risks: 17; Canadian insurers we compare for contents and property risks
Factory-gate prices for Canadian-made products, year over year, July 2026 (StatCan): +12.4%; Factory-gate prices for Canadian-made products, year over year, July 2026 (StatCan)
Non-residential construction costs, year over year, Q2 2026 (StatCan): +3.5%; Non-residential construction costs, year over year, Q2 2026 (StatCan)
Raw materials prices, year over year, July 2026 (StatCan): +18.1%; Raw materials prices, year over year, July 2026 (StatCan)

Business contents insurance covers what fills your premises: furniture, computers, equipment, stock, and the improvements you've paid for in a leased space. It pays to repair or replace them after fire, theft, water escape, windstorm and the other perils on your commercial property policy, and can extend to customers' goods in your care.

Contents claims usually go wrong on the limit, not the coverage: a stock figure set in spring and tested in December, improvements valued at a five-year-old invoice, or a small off-premises sublimit. We set limits from current replacement cost and your peak stock, and pair them with business interruption so the income survives the replacement.

What's covered

Furniture, fixtures, fittings and office equipment
Computers, phones, point-of-sale and electronics
Machinery, tools and kitchen or clinical equipment
Stock and inventory, with peak season increases
Tenant's improvements and betterments
Customers' property in your care, custody or control
Contents temporarily off premises or in transit, to sublimits
Money, valuable papers and outdoor signs, to sublimits

What business contents insurance covers

Contents is everything that would fall out if you turned the building upside down, plus the fit-out you paid for. It is written as part of a commercial property policy or a tenant package, usually with one limit for contents and stock or separate limits for each.

Furniture, fixtures and fittings: desks, shelving, display cases, signage inside the premises.
Equipment and machinery: tools, kitchen equipment, production machines, medical and diagnostic equipment.
Computers and electronics: laptops, servers, phones, point-of-sale systems and printers.
Stock: raw materials, work in progress, finished goods and packaging.
Tenant's improvements and betterments: flooring, partitions, lighting, built-in counters and similar fit-out.
Property of others: customers' goods in your care, custody or control, where the policy extends to it.
Extensions: money and securities, valuable papers, outdoor signs, and property temporarily off premises, each usually sublimited.

What it does not cover: the building itself if you don't own it, mechanical breakdown, employee theft, and lost income. Those sit on separate lines described below.

Who needs business contents insurance

Any business that owns things it couldn't replace from cash flow. The most common buyers are businesses that don't own their building:

Commercial tenants in offices, retail units, plazas and industrial bays. The landlord's policy covers the building, not your contents. See commercial tenant insurance.
Office-based firms, whose contents are mostly computers, furniture and fit-out. Contents are often the bulk of what they insure.
Retailers and wholesalers, where stock is the largest asset and swings with the season.
Restaurants, clinics and salons, with expensive equipment and improvements built into a leased unit.
Home-based businesses. Home policies commonly exclude or tightly limit business property, which is the gap our home-based business insurance page and our guide to the coverage gap in your house policy explain.

If you lease, the insurance clause in your lease decides much of this. It usually requires you to insure your contents and improvements to full replacement cost and to carry liability. Our guide to the insurance clause in a commercial lease goes through it line by line.

Improvements and betterments: the most under-insured item

Improvements and betterments are the permanent changes a tenant pays for in a space it doesn't own: a restaurant kitchen's hood and plumbing, a clinic's treatment rooms, a store's flooring and lighting. Once installed, they usually become part of the building, but the tenant paid for them, and most leases make the tenant insure them.

They are under-insured for two reasons. The value is often set from the original invoice years ago, and construction prices have kept rising: Statistics Canada reported non-residential building construction prices up 3.5% year over year in the second quarter of 2026. And a tenant who took over a space already fitted out may not list the inherited improvements at all, even though the lease makes them responsible.

Set the limit from what it would cost to rebuild the fit-out today, not from what it cost then.
Confirm in the lease whether improvements made by a previous tenant are now yours to insure.
Check the valuation clause. If you don't repair, or the landlord repairs at its own expense, many wordings pay a reduced amount or nothing for improvements.

How contents are valued at claim time

The valuation basis decides how a claim is paid, and it can differ by category of property on the same policy. We cover coinsurance and the settlement bases in detail on the commercial property guide. The contents-specific points are below.

Common valuation bases for business contents
Property	Usual basis	What to watch
Furniture, equipment and computers	Replacement cost, new for old	Replacement cost is usually paid only once you actually replace; until then many policies pay actual cash value
Stock and raw materials	Your cost to replace it, not its selling price	Prices move with markets and tariffs, so the limit has to move too
Finished goods already sold	Cost, unless a selling price endorsement applies	Worth adding for businesses with large sold-but-undelivered orders
Tenant's improvements	Replacement cost if repaired within a reasonable time	A reduced amount, or nothing, if not repaired
Property of others	The lesser of your legal liability or the property's value, depending on wording	Some wordings only pay if you are legally liable
Valuable papers and records	Cost of blank media plus cost to recreate, to a sublimit	Digital data usually needs cyber cover

Most contents policies also carry a coinsurance clause. If your limit is below the required percentage of actual value, every claim is reduced in proportion, even small ones. The worked example below shows how that plays out with seasonal stock.

Setting a stock limit that holds up all year

Stock is the category most likely to be wrong on the day of a loss, because it changes every week and the limit changes once a year.

Prices are also moving. Statistics Canada's Industrial Product Price Index, which tracks factory-gate prices for Canadian-made products, was up 12.4% year over year in July 2026, and its Raw Materials Price Index was up 18.1%. Those indexes exclude tariffs, so importers can see larger increases on the same goods. A stock limit set at last year's cost can be short on this year's shelves.

Peak season endorsement: raises the stock limit automatically for set months, such as October to December for retailers.
Reporting form: you report stock values monthly or quarterly and pay premium on actual values, with the limit set at your peak.
Blanket limits: one limit across contents and stock, or across several locations, gives room to absorb a temporary peak.

Our check-up for manufacturers and wholesalers, tariffs, stockpiles and your stock limit, shows how to set a limit when you are deliberately carrying more stock.

Off-premises, transit and property of others

A contents limit applies at the insured location. Property that leaves it, and property that belongs to someone else, is covered only by extension, and the extensions are usually small.

Off-premises: contents temporarily at another location, such as a trade show, a repairer or an employee's home. Usually a modest sublimit. One Canadian insurer's home-based business endorsement, for example, covers inventory up to $30,000 at home but only up to $7,500 away from home.
Transit: goods in your own vehicle or with a carrier, usually limited per shipment. Businesses that ship regularly need cargo insurance.
Tools and portable equipment: anything that works on job sites or travels with staff belongs on a tools and equipment floater, which follows the property wherever it goes.
Property of others: customers' goods left for repair, cleaning, storage or consignment. A standard contents limit may not include them. Most liability policies also exclude damage to property in your care, custody or control, so the property policy is usually the only place this can be insured.
Newly acquired locations: many policies extend contents cover to a new location for a limited number of days. Tell your broker before you move in.

Repair shops, dry cleaners, jewellers, warehouses and storage operators hold large values of other people's property. Our warehousing guide covers the legal liability and bailee options in detail.

Common exclusions, and how to close the gaps

Contents cover inherits the exclusions of the property form. Most can be closed with an endorsement or a separate line.

Typical contents exclusions and where the cover comes from
Excluded or limited	How to cover it
Overland flood and sewer backup	Flood and sewer backup endorsements, where available at your location
Mechanical or electrical breakdown of equipment	Equipment breakdown cover
Employee theft and fraud	Commercial crime cover
Money and securities above a small sublimit	Money and securities cover under a crime policy
Unexplained inventory shortage or mysterious disappearance	Not usually insurable; managed through inventory controls
Data and software loss from a cyber attack	Cyber liability cover
Property in transit beyond the sublimit	Cargo insurance or a transit floater
Income lost while contents are replaced	Business interruption cover

Business contents vs. the covers it's confused with

Contents is one part of a property program. It's easy to assume another policy covers it, or that it covers more than it does.

How business contents compares with related property covers
	Business contents	Building cover	Tools and equipment floater	Home insurance policy
Insures	Movable property, stock and tenant's improvements	The structure and building services	Portable equipment, wherever it is	Personal property and the dwelling
Where it applies	At the insured location, plus small extensions	At the insured location	On and off premises, including job sites	At home; business property excluded or tightly limited
Usually bought by	Tenants, owner-occupiers, home-based businesses	The building owner, or a tenant if the lease requires	Contractors and mobile trades	Homeowners and renters
Valuation	Replacement cost or ACV by category	Replacement cost, with by-law cover	Often ACV unless replacement cost is added	Varies; business items usually sublimited

A contents claim, worked through

Hypothetical: a clothing boutique leases a ground-floor unit. Its contents and stock limit, set in April, is $150,000. In late November, a supply line bursts in the unit above and water runs through the ceiling overnight. At that point the boutique has $140,000 of holiday stock and $40,000 of fixtures and computers, so $180,000 of insured property in total.

1The loss: $100,000 of stock and fixtures is damaged beyond saving.
2The coinsurance test: with a 90% clause, the boutique needed a limit of at least $162,000 against $180,000 of value. It carried $150,000, about 93% of the requirement.
3The penalty: the claim is reduced in the same proportion, to about $92,600, before the deductible.
4The improvements: the ceiling, lighting and millwork the boutique paid for are damaged too. They were insured at $50,000, the 2019 invoice. Rebuilding them today costs $75,000, and the lease makes them the tenant's to insure.
5The income: the shop is closed for six weeks of its busiest season. Without business interruption, that loss is uninsured.
6The recovery: the boutique's insurer may pursue the upstairs tenant through subrogation, but that doesn't speed up the boutique's own payment.

A peak season endorsement or a blanket limit sized to November, improvements valued at today's cost and an income cover would have turned this into a straightforward claim.

What business contents insurance costs

Contents is priced as a rate per $100 of insured value, applied to each limit. The rate comes from the same COPE assessment used for commercial property: construction, occupancy, protection and exposure.

Occupancy: what you do and what you store. A restaurant or woodworking shop rates higher than an office, and in a shared building your neighbours' occupancies affect you too.
Protection: sprinklers, monitored fire and intrusion alarms, and distance to a fire hall and hydrant.
Theft exposure: stock that is easy to resell, such as electronics, tools, liquor or designer clothing, often comes with alarm, lock and safe requirements.
Valuation and limits: replacement cost costs more than ACV, and higher sublimits for off-premises, money and property of others add premium.
Deductible and claims history: a higher deductible lowers the rate; frequent small claims raise it.

The market is currently in buyers' favour. Marsh's Global Insurance Market Index put Canadian commercial property rates down 8% in the third quarter of 2026, which makes this a good time to raise a limit that has fallen behind. Send us your current declarations page and we'll show you where the gaps are.

How we place business contents insurance

1Inventory: we list every category of property you own or are responsible for, including improvements and customers' goods.
2Lease review: we read the insurance clause to confirm what you must insure and to what value.
3Valuation: we set limits at current replacement cost, sized for peak stock, and flag coinsurance risk.
4Extensions: we match off-premises, transit, money and property-of-others sublimits to how your business actually works.
5Marketing: we take the submission to the insurers on our panel of 17 whose appetite fits your occupancy.
6Review: we revisit values each year, and when you move, renovate or change your stock levels.

If you have a contents loss

1Make the premises safe and stop further damage: shut off water, move undamaged stock, secure broken doors and windows. Reasonable protection costs are usually claimable.
2Report the loss to your broker and insurer promptly and in writing. In Ontario, the statutory conditions in the Insurance Act set notice and proof-of-loss duties for fire contracts, and the other provinces have similar rules.
3For theft or vandalism, report to police and keep the file number.
4Photograph everything before cleanup, and keep damaged items until the adjuster has seen them.
5Pull invoices, stock records and your most recent inventory count to support the values.

Our claims team works alongside you and the adjuster through to settlement.

Good to know

Frequently asked questions

What does business contents insurance cover?: It covers the movable property of a business against insured damage such as fire, theft, water escape and windstorm. That includes furniture, computers, equipment, machinery, stock and tenant's improvements, and it can extend to customers' goods in your care and to property temporarily off premises, usually to set sublimits.
I rent my space. Doesn't my landlord's insurance cover my contents?: No. A landlord's policy covers the building and the landlord's own property. Your furniture, equipment, stock and the improvements you paid for are yours to insure, and most commercial leases require you to insure them to full replacement cost. The insurance clause in your lease sets the exact requirements.
Who insures leasehold improvements, the tenant or the landlord?: Usually the tenant. Improvements a tenant pays for, such as flooring, partitions, lighting and built-in counters, are typically the tenant's to insure, and many leases say so. Improvements left by a previous tenant can also become your responsibility. They are one of the most commonly under-insured items on a tenant's policy.
Should I choose replacement cost or actual cash value?: Replacement cost, in most cases. It pays to replace with new property of like kind and quality without deducting for age, although many policies pay it only once you actually replace. Actual cash value deducts depreciation, so older equipment and furniture can settle well below what replacing them costs.
Is my stock covered at cost or at selling price?: Most policies value stock at your cost to replace it, not its retail price. Finished goods you have already sold but not delivered can sometimes be insured at selling price by endorsement. Because stock levels and prices change through the year, the limit should be set at your peak or written on a reporting form.
Are my contents covered away from my premises?: Only to the policy's off-premises sublimit, which is usually modest and may apply only to temporary locations like trade shows. Tools and equipment that travel regularly belong on a tools and equipment floater, and goods you ship regularly need cargo or transit cover with a limit per shipment.
Are customers' goods in my care covered?: Not automatically. Customers' property left for repair, cleaning, storage or sale needs a property of others extension or a bailee's cover. Most liability policies exclude damage to property in your care, custody or control, so this is usually insured on the property side. The limit should match the highest value you typically hold.
Does my home insurance cover my home-based business equipment?: Usually only a little, or not at all. Home policies commonly exclude or tightly limit business property, and rarely cover business liability or lost income. A home-based business endorsement or a separate business policy closes the gap. Inventory and equipment away from home typically carry an even lower limit.
How much does business contents insurance cost?: It is priced as a rate per $100 of insured value. The rate depends on your occupancy, the building's construction and fire protection, your theft exposure and location, the valuation basis, sublimits and deductible. An office with computers and furniture prices very differently from a restaurant kitchen or a store full of electronics.

Sources

Industrial product and raw materials price indexes, July 2026. Statistics Canada, The Daily, August 20, 2026.
Building construction price indexes, second quarter 2026. Statistics Canada, The Daily, July 24, 2026.
Home-based business insurance. The Co-operators, Accessed October 26, 2026.
Canada commercial insurance rates fall for third straight year (Marsh Global Insurance Market Index, Q3 2026). Insurance Business Canada, October 21, 2026.
Insurance Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. I.8. Government of Ontario, e-Laws, Current consolidation.

This page is general information, not insurance or legal advice. Coverage depends on your policy wording and the insurer. Speak with a licensed broker about your situation.

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