BizCover has added commercial landlord insurance to its online platform, with policies underwritten by Vero, AIG and QBE available to owners of shops, offices and warehouses without broker involvement.
The cover includes building damage, public liability and loss of rental income following an insured event. Eligible owners can insure up to 10 properties, each with up to 10 tenants, with public liability limits of A$5 million, A$10 million or A$20 million available. Chief executive Michael Gottlieb said the product was a response to customer feedback and that BizCover planned to expand the offering in 2027.
The launch takes BizCover well beyond the simple single-risk policies it was built on. The platform sells liability, professional indemnity and business packs to small businesses. A landlord with 10 commercial buildings and up to 100 tenants between them is a different kind of client - one that the market has typically served through intermediaries.
That distinction matters for how the product will perform in practice. Sums insured, lease obligations, tenant activities and loss-of-rent indemnity periods all vary from building to building, and choosing them online without advice is where errors most commonly occur. In commercial property, those errors tend to mean underinsurance that only becomes visible after a loss.
The scale of that risk in the SME market is well documented. Vero’s 2026 SME Insurance Index, now in its 15th year, found that many SMEs are not experiencing the full benefit of broker risk advice. Its 2025 edition - which surveyed 1,750 Australian businesses - found only 42% review their sum insured annually, and that more than one in three had experienced a claim where the sum insured was insufficient to cover the loss. For commercial landlords buying online and setting their own building values, that is a material risk that the platform itself cannot mitigate.
BizCover’s move into this segment also carries a structural tension. AUB Group, the ASX-listed broker group, has held a stake in BizCover since 2020. BizCover also operates a separate platform for brokers, BizCover for Brokers, though the launch announcement did not confirm whether commercial landlord cover will be available through that channel.
The launch arrives as Australia’s intermediated insurance market is growing in premium volume but contracting in the number of firms actively placing risk. APRA data for the six months to December 2025 shows total premiums invoiced through intermediaries reached A$22.97 billion, up from A$21.59 billion in the prior half-year, according to figures published in April 2026. At the same time, as Insurance Business has reported, the number of intermediaries participating in the market has been declining even as the premium pool expands - a concentration trend that is reshaping the competitive dynamics BizCover is entering.
Vero’s own index data captures the channel shift from the buyer’s side. Only 10% of Australian businesses now buy most of their insurance through a broker, down from 27% in 2018, according to the 2025 edition. Direct purchase has grown for simpler products - commercial motor, workers’ compensation, travel - while broker relationships have held firmer for more complex commercial risks. Commercial landlord cover, particularly for multi-building portfolios with varied tenant profiles, has historically sat firmly in the latter category.
For brokers, the question is not whether BizCover will take every commercial landlord client - it will not. The insurers backing the product are familiar names in intermediated commercial property, and their willingness to write through a self-service channel signals that they view the simpler end of the market - standard buildings, low-hazard tenants, straightforward lease structures - as suitable for online distribution. APRA data noted significant rate reductions of between 11% and 20% in property cover through the first half of 2026 due to abundant market capacity, which makes competitive online pricing easier to sustain.
Larger portfolios, mixed-use buildings and properties with higher-risk tenants are likely to remain with brokers, where the complexity of the risk justifies the advice. The contest will be over owners of three or four shops or offices who, until now, had limited practical options beyond calling a broker. That is a real segment, and in a market where total intermediated commercial property premiums run to tens of billions of dollars annually, BizCover now has the capacity backing to compete in it.
