At first glance, an online company looks "asset-free": no shop, no counter, everything's in the cloud. Then it turns out there's a warehouse full of stock, there are products out for delivery, and there's an operation that hinges on a single point – order processing. Webshop risks are real, they're just located differently than in the world of physical shops.
- A webshop's biggest property risk is typically its stock – whether it sits in your own warehouse or with a logistics partner.
- The product's journey is a liability question: faulty products, packaging, delivery damage.
- Being "online" doesn't protect you from classic losses – equipment used to run the operation from a home office needs cover too.
Stock: the forgotten lead character
Wherever there's stock, there's a property insurance question too: fire, water damage, burglary at your own or a rented warehouse. Stock held at a logistics provider (a fulfilment partner) deserves special attention – who insures it, up to what limit, and what does the service agreement say about it? During seasonal stock peaks (November–December!), cover sized to the average stock value can fall short – the seasonal operation article covers this. The basics: premises property overview.
The product's journey: liability
A webshop puts products on the market – and that brings product-liability questions: the importer who brings the product into the EEA is treated as the manufacturer for product-liability purposes, and so is the distributor of a private-label product. A distributor who merely resells carries secondary liability at most: it arises only if they fail to name the manufacturer, or the party they obtained the product from. The map: liability overview, with a deeper dive on felelosseg.biz.
The operation itself
The classic risks of online operations: the equipment in the office/warehouse, the machines of a team working from home (the home office boundary), the packaging and delivery process. Cyber risks (data-protection incidents, system outages, online fraud) are a separate world – cover exists for them, and its scope and terms are evolving quickly; during the needs assessment it's worth checking whether the company's size and the data it holds justify it. The same sober order applies here too: get the big, tangible risks settled first – what's covered and what isn't – then fine-tuning can follow.
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