It took eight attempts and a fair bit of time but I eventually received a reply from my insurance company about how they define a business.
From their reply:
As you note, the PDS does not define the words “business”, “profession”, “trade” or “occupation”.
In Australian Common Law, when a word is not defined in a contract the ordinary dictionary definition is applied in the context of the document being considered. Australian courts use the Macquarie Dictionary for these definitions. Our interpretation is that if you are selling goods or services and profiting financially from this (or looking to profit) then we considered it to be a business.
You have said that you believe that you are engaged in a “hobby”.
The Macquarie defines this as: hobby noun a spare-time activity or pastime, etc., pursued for pleasure or recreation
So we believe there to be a distinction between a hobby and a business in that a business pursues financial profit, whereas a hobby does not.
My interpretation of this is as follows:
If you make, or intend to make, a profit from your photography you are likely to be considered by your insurance company to be running a business. If you run this 'business' from your home and do not disclose it to your insurance company, you may find a claim denied because you did not disclose all relevant details when purchasing your policy and they are able to deny a claim because of this.
Please check your situation.
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