How to Audit Your Existing Business Insurance in 60 Minutes

The Answer in 60 Seconds

A complete insurance audit for a small or mid-sized Singapore business can be done in six steps in sixty minutes with no specialist software, provided the documents are findable. The audit checks six things in this order: (1) the policies you currently hold, (2) the dates - what has lapsed, what renews in the next 90 days, (3) the mandatory covers - principally Work Injury Compensation under the Work Injury Compensation Act 2019 and foreign-worker medical insurance under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act 1990, (4) the sums insured against today's exposure (the average clause penalises underinsurance), (5) the exclusions that are easy to miss, and (6) the gaps - risks the business actually faces but does not cover. The output of the audit is a one-page summary that can be handed to an IFA at the next renewal cycle, and a list of action items prioritised by deadline pressure. This article walks through each step with the source references that underpin the checks.

The Sourced Detail

A 2025 QBE Singapore SME survey reported that while 74% of Singapore SMEs were concerned about business interruption, only 23% carried specific cover for it. Similar gaps were reported for inventory (72% concerned, 29% covered) and fraud (72% concerned, 17% covered). The gaps are not the product of indifference; they are the product of never auditing what is in place against what the business is actually exposed to. The exercise below is the minimum-effort version of that audit.

The six steps are sequential. Step 3 (mandatory covers) is the only step with potential regulatory exposure if a gap is found; everything else is operational risk reduction.

Step 1 (10 minutes): Collect every policy currently in force

Open the workspace where insurance documents live - ideally the seven-folder structure described in the corporate insurance folder framework. For each cover, write down on a single sheet:

The cover (Work Injury Compensation, Public Liability, Fire and Property, and so on)
The insurer
The policy number
The policy period (start and end dates)
The sum insured or limit
Whether the cover is claims-made or occurrence-based (relevant for liability covers)

If a cover is named in the lease, in a customer contract, or in a tender requirement but is not in the list, mark it as a finding for Step 6.

If a cover is in the list but the document cannot be located, mark it as a finding for Step 6 - and treat the absence of the document as itself the most pressing finding, because at claim time the document is what invokes the cover. See why email and WhatsApp are the worst places to store business insurance policies for the structural reasons document loss happens.

Step 2 (10 minutes): Check the dates

For each policy in the list:

Has the policy period expired? If yes, the cover is lapsed, full stop. There is no grace period under Singapore market practice. A lapsed policy does not respond to losses occurring after the expiry date.
Was the premium paid within sixty days of policy inception? Under the General Insurance Association of Singapore Premium Payment Framework, non-life commercial policies in Singapore typically carry a 60-day premium-payment warranty. If the premium is unpaid by day 60, the policy lapses automatically. A claim arising on day 58 can be rejected if premium is not received by day 60. See the Premium Payment Framework explainer for the detail.
What renews in the next 90 days? Renewals in the next 30 days are immediate-action items - the renewal-quote target date (T-60) has typically already passed. Renewals in 30 to 90 days need a brief to the IFA now.

Step 3 (10 minutes): Check the mandatory covers

This is the step with regulatory exposure. Three covers are effectively mandatory for most Singapore SMEs.

Work Injury Compensation insurance. Under the Work Injury Compensation Act 2019, section 24 requires every employer to maintain WIC insurance for all employees doing manual work, regardless of salary, and for all non-manual employees earning at or below the salary threshold MOM publishes (currently S$2,600 per month for non-manual workers, in force since 1 April 2021). The current compensation limits, in force for accidents on or after 1 November 2025, are: medical expenses up to S$53,000, permanent incapacity ranging from S$116,000 (minimum) to S$346,000 (maximum), and death benefit ranging from S$91,000 to S$269,000 - per MOM's higher-compensation-limits press release. Check: is the headcount on the policy schedule accurate to today's payroll? Are the manual / non-manual categories correctly recorded? The premium is payroll-based, so an inaccurate headcount produces an inaccurate premium and, potentially, an underinsured loss.

Foreign-worker medical insurance. Under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act 1990 and the relevant regulations, employers of Work Permit and S Pass holders must maintain medical insurance for those workers. The Stage 2 enhancement, in force from 1 July 2025, requires age-differentiated premiums (age band at or below 50, and above 50), standardised exclusions, and direct insurer-to-hospital reimbursement; the Stage 1 baseline (effective 1 July 2023) sets a minimum annual coverage of S$60,000, first-dollar S$15,000 at 100% insurer payment, and a 75:25 insurer-employer co-pay on amounts above S$15,000 up to S$60,000. Check: is the cover current, and is every Work Permit and S Pass holder listed on the schedule?

Motor third-party liability. Under the Motor Vehicles (Third-Party Risks and Compensation) Act 1960, no motor vehicle may be used on a Singapore road unless there is in force in relation to its use a policy of insurance covering third-party risks. Driving uninsured is a criminal offence. If the business owns or operates any vehicle - including a company-leased vehicle - confirm that cover is in force on the registration number.

If any of these three is found to be lapsed or insufficient at this stage, the rest of the audit is secondary - reinstate the mandatory cover first.

Step 4 (10 minutes): Check sum-insured adequacy

Most non-life commercial policies in Singapore contain an average clause (or "average condition"). Under an average clause, if the sum insured at the time of loss is less than the actual value of the insured property, the insurer pays only the proportion of the partial loss that the sum insured bears to the actual value. A 50% under-insurance produces a 50% reduction on a partial-loss payment.

The check is simple. For each policy where sum insured matters - fire and property, contents, business interruption, group medical, trade credit - ask:

Has the underlying value or exposure changed since the last renewal? New equipment purchased? Headcount grown? Revenue increased? Stock turnover faster than the basis on which the BI was rated?
Is the sum insured a fresh assessment, or a roll-forward of the prior year? A roll-forward is the default in Singapore SME practice and is the single most common cause of underinsurance.

For business interruption specifically, the indemnity period (the maximum time over which BI losses are payable) is as important as the sum insured. A 12-month indemnity period is the Singapore market default; for businesses dependent on physical premises that take longer than 12 months to rebuild, the default is inadequate.

Step 5 (5 minutes): Check the exclusions

Every policy has exclusions, and three are particularly common sources of surprise at claim time for Singapore SMEs.

Cyber exclusion in standard liability covers. Most general liability and property policies now exclude cyber events under the Lloyd's Market Association LMA5400/LMA5401 cyber endorsements or equivalent. A business carrying public liability but no separate cyber cover may have no insurance for a cyber-triggered loss.
Home-based business exclusion in standard fire policies. If part of the business operates from a residential address - a home office, a stockholding at a residence - the standard fire policy on the residence will not respond to the business loss; specific endorsement is needed.
Contractors / sub-contractors exclusion in standard public liability. If the business engages contractors or sub-contractors, the standard public liability policy often excludes their acts unless they are specifically endorsed onto the cover.

The exclusions section of each policy is typically the last few pages of the wording. The exercise here is not to read the entire wording but to skim the exclusions list for the named exposures the business actually has.

Step 6 (5 minutes): Note the gaps

The output of Steps 1 to 5 is a list of action items. The output of Step 6 is a list of un-insured exposures - risks the business runs but does not cover.

The five most common gaps in Singapore SMEs are:

Business interruption (only 23% covered against 74% concerned, per the QBE survey).
Cyber - particularly for SMEs holding customer personal data under PDPA Part 6A breach-notification obligations.
Professional indemnity for advisory or service businesses that have outgrown their original incorporation profile.
Crime / fidelity guarantee - employee dishonesty exposure as a growing business scales beyond the original founding team.
Trade credit for businesses extending payment terms to customers but without insurer protection against customer insolvency.

The gap list does not get filled by buying every cover named; it is the brief for the next conversation with an IFA, who can match cover to actual exposure.

After the audit

The audit output is a single sheet with three columns: cover, status (in force / lapsed / underinsured / gap), and action (renew / increase / add / no change). The sheet is the brief for the next renewal cycle, and the basis for the renewal calendar described in the twelve insurance dates every Singapore SME must track.

Common Mistakes / What Goes Wrong

Auditing only the policies that come to mind. The covers the SME most needs to find are the ones it forgot it had.
Confusing "premium paid" with "in force". A premium can be paid late and still result in policy lapse under the Premium Payment Framework.
Accepting the prior-year sum insured as adequate. The average clause does not care that the value was correct twelve months ago.
Skipping the exclusions read. The exclusion that matters at claim time is the one no one read at inception.
Treating mandatory covers as a one-time setup. WICA headcount changes; foreign-worker medical schedules change as workers join and leave; mandatory covers need annual review against the current workforce.
No documented sum-insured basis. Two years later no one remembers why the sum insured was set at the level it was.
Auditing without the IFA in the room (figuratively). The audit output should be a brief to the IFA, not a substitute for the IFA's market view.
Stopping at the gap list without sequencing. Not every gap is urgent; the prioritisation is part of the audit.
Treating audit findings as advice already taken. A finding is a question; closing it requires the IFA's market view and the business's decision.
Auditing once and never again. A 60-minute audit at annual cadence is more useful than an exhaustive audit every five years.

What This Means for Your Business

Diarise a 60-minute insurance audit annually - at the start of the financial year is the most defensible cadence.
Do the audit before the renewal cycle, not after. The audit findings shape the renewal brief.
Address mandatory-cover findings first - WICA, foreign-worker medical, motor third-party. The rest can wait days; these cannot.
Document the sum-insured basis for every cover. A note in the policy folder of how the figure was arrived at survives staff turnover.
Treat the gap list as the IFA brief. Coverage decisions come back from the IFA against the gap list, not against an open-ended market scan.
Re-audit on material events. New premises, new product line, new senior hire, new customer contract, new claim - any of these should trigger a fresh audit, not be deferred to the next annual cycle.
Keep the audit output for five years. It is part of the record-keeping perimeter under the IRAS record-keeping requirements and the WICA 2019 accident-records expectation.

Questions to Ask Your Adviser

For each cover we hold, what is the sum-insured basis and when was it last reviewed against the underlying exposure?
Which of our covers are claims-made, and what is the retroactive date on each?
What exclusions in our current wordings would you flag against our actual operating profile?
Looking at our QBE-style gap profile (BI, inventory, fraud, cyber), what is the relative cost-benefit of closing each gap?
What would you change in the way we present our annual audit summary to make the next renewal more efficient?

Related Information

Published 21 May 2026. Source verified 21 May 2026. COVA is an introducer under MAS Notice FAA-N02. We do not recommend insurance products. We provide factual information sourced from primary regulators and route you to a licensed IFA who can match a policy to your specific situation.