insurer wants to know if we have other activities besides our main activity

Secondary activities determine the actual risk profile

The insurer wants to know whether the risk it insures matches what the company actually does. The SBI code in the Trade Register shows the main activity, but an enterprise that, in addition to wholesale trade, also carries out transport, hiring of equipment or installation work has a different risk profile than the main activity alone shows. For the insurer, this is relevant to the premium and to the question of whether damage will or will not be covered by the policy.

This is related to customer due diligence that the insurer must in any case carry out under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act. An unexplained secondary activity — particularly one that does not logically connect to the core activity — may prompt further questions, for example about the source of the company's assets. Often this question is therefore combined with questions about creditworthiness; see also what you enter when the insurer asks about financial health. The answer usually amounts to a list of the activities as registered, possibly supplemented with a brief explanation of each secondary activity.

Legal basis: Trade Register Act and customer due diligence

The recorded business activities — both main and secondary activities — derive from the Trade Register Act 2007, which determines what data of an enterprise are registered. The reason for the question itself derives from customer due diligence under the Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Act: the insurer must form a clear picture of the nature and purpose of the business relationship, and secondary activities are part of that. This falls within the same category as questions about who are the ultimate beneficial owners of the company; that also explains why this question appears in one list but not in another, as described under why banks and insurers ask different questions about the same subject.