Multi-Tenanted Industrial Building, Western Sydney

A commercial building in Western Sydney with four tenancies was referred to us by a mortgage broker at settlement. The owner needed cover in place quickly to satisfy the lender's requirements.

The tenant mix was the challenge. The building housed mechanics, trade workshops, and other high-risk occupations that sit outside most mainstream insurers' appetite. These are the types of tenants that trigger automatic declines in online quoting systems.

We submitted the risk across our panel, targeting insurers who have appetite for industrial and trade-based tenancy mixes. Each submission included a detailed breakdown of the tenant occupations, building construction, and fire protection measures.

For properties with higher-risk tenants, the way the risk is presented to underwriters matters. We focused on the building's overall risk profile rather than letting individual tenant types dominate the assessment.

Multiple mainstream insurers declined outright due to the tenant occupations. Mechanic and tyre shops are flagged as high-risk by most automated underwriting systems because of the fire and environmental exposure.

The only quote initially available was over $44,000 - a premium the owner felt was disproportionate to the risk and would eat significantly into the property's returns.

The saving came down to knowing which insurers manually underwrite industrial property risks rather than relying on automated systems that auto-decline certain tenant types. The same building, same tenants, same risk - but a dramatically different premium from an insurer who understood the actual exposure.

This is a common pattern with multi-tenancy commercial properties. The first quote you get isn't necessarily representative of the market. A broker who knows where to go can often find significantly better terms.