The right cover for your business type

Workers compensation insurance, once a business employs anyone, and compulsory third party personal injury cover for any vehicle the business registers. business.gov.au, the Australian Government's business information service states that "Employers must get workers compensation insurance from an authorised insurer", that "The laws vary in each state and territory", and that third party personal injury cover is needed by law where "your business uses motor vehicles" and "is often part of your vehicle registration fee", all checked on 3 November 2026. Professional indemnity insurance is compulsory for some occupations through that occupation's own regulator. Nothing else is compulsory anywhere in Australia.

No. No Australian law requires public liability insurance of businesses generally, including sole traders, as stated by business.gov.au, the Australian Government's business information service, checked on 3 November 2026; business.gov.au lists it among the insurances a business "may need by law" with the qualification "which some states and territories need for certain occupations", and separately says a business "may need certain types of insurance by law or because people you deal with need it". In practice a sole trader is asked for it by a landlord, a council, a venue, a market operator, a head contractor or a client, and that party's condition - not a statute - sets the sum insured.

OpenStream publishes no premium for any business cover, and no range, no "from" figure and no typical cost: business insurance is underwritten per risk from the trade, the turnover, the premises and the claims history, so there is no list price to read, and no Australian regulator publishes business premiums the way the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman publishes every open health policy's premium. OpenStream will not print a figure it cannot read from a public source, so these pages carry none. What this page can do is say which covers a business of this kind is required to hold and who requires them, with the source for each, so a quote can be asked for against the right list.

Every one of the 506 classes in the Australian Bureau of Statistics' Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC), 2006 (Revision 2.0) is held here, so a class never looks missing when it is only unwritten. 117 have a page of their own; 81 were looked at and deliberately refused one, each with its reason; the remaining 308 answer with the ABS's definition of the class and the plain statement that nothing specific to them has been written yet. A class earns a page only when at least two of its covers can be stated from its own ABS definition or from a regulator that registers its occupation. Checked 3 November 2026.

No. OpenStream is not an insurer, not a broker and holds no Australian financial services licence; it names no insurer, ranks no policy and gives no advice about business insurance. What it does is set out what the law and the usual contracts require, with sources, and offer a qualification check whose output goes to a licensed broker who contacts the business.