Money insurance is a type of policy designed to protect your physical cash or cheques from going missing. If you lose your cash due to theft, robbery, or just plain carelessness, this insurance will compensate you for every dollar you’ve lost (up to the coverage limit you’ve purchased).Â
Money insurance covers for the loss of monies and/or other monetary instruments while in transit or in premises due to unforeseen circumstances, including robbery theft or fraud by 3rd parties/ public. Money insurance can also cover damage to your safes in the event of a robbery.
Money insured would include cash, bank notes, money orders, cheques or other types of cash equivalent instruments. Goods or precious items will not be a covered risk under money insurance but can be insured under a Property or Fidelity Guarantee Insurance policy.
Money insurance generally doesn’t cover:
- Gold, silver, and other precious metals
- Precious stones like diamonds, rubies, sapphire, etc.
- Jewellery
- Watches and other timepieces
- Loss of money outside of Singapore (or specified covered countries)
- Loss of money while entrusted to professional money carriers
- Loss due to accounting errors & omissions
- Money in ATMs
- Loss due to employee forgery or fraud (you’ll need Fidelity Guarantee Insurance to cover this)
- Loss due to burglary that did not involve forcible entry (e.g. you leave a window/door unlocked and someone climbs into your premises). If you want to cover loss due to forcible entry, you’ll need an extension to a regular Money Insurance policy – contact us for a quote to arrange this.
Money insurance is not compulsory and there is no regulation governing how money is handled within the business (with exception of deposit taking institutions like banks and finance companies governed by the Deposit Insurance Scheme). Companies will have to put in place their own safeguards & preventive measures to ensure the monies are kept in a secure, restricted place only to be accessed by authorised personnel.
Regulations do not stipulate how and what measures businesses needs to take, nor do they enforce money insurance policies be purchased. It is up to the business itself to protect its valuables with Money insurance
Exclusions under money insurance covers losses arising from fraud or dishonesty of insured’s employees, Shortage due to errors and omissions, Losses from an unattended vehicle, and the employer’s neglience to ensure safe keeping of monies.
Losses as a result of 1st party actions (such as theft by employees) will be instead covered under Fidelity Guarantee Insurance, but theft from 3rd parties will be covered under Money Insurance.
Coverage required is dependent on the daily/weekly/monthly exposure of the business itself to external risk, and the limit requirement relies on how the business is conducted. Take for example of a small grocery shop vs a mega mall with multiple Point-of-Sale (POS) counters. The exposure of grocery shop is relatively small as there might just be a single POS point and daily sales takings is smaller than the mega mall. However, if the mega mall reconcile the daily takings and deposit the earnings to the nearby bank on a daily basis, its exposure is limited to a single day revenve in the event of a robbery. On the flip side, the small grocery shop may instead reconcile the earnings on a weekly basis, hence exposure is heightened and a higher amount of coverage would instead be appropriate in this scenario.
The nature of the business is also to be considered when customising the coverage levels. A money changer whom trades currencies is more prone to risk than a business that accepts electronic payment modes
Money insurance is particularly useful for small businesses that frequently handle sizeable amounts of cash, or cheques.
Industries where money insurance is an integral part of risk management are:
- Food & Beverage: Your employees may lose the money, or your store may be subject to theft or robbery.Â
- Retail: Your employees may lose the money, or your store may be subject to theft or robbery.
- Money Changers: You’ll have large amounts of cash in the store, so money insurance is absolutely essential.
- Offices that keep cash or cheques.