Taking out the right insurance helps protect your business, your customers and your income. There are types of insurance that are required by law and those that are non-compulsory. In this blog post we briefly discuss the insurance options available to businesses before diving in to talk about public liability insurance and why it is important.
Compulsory Insurance
Some forms of insurance are required by law. These include: Worker’s compensation insurance, third-party personal injury insurance (if you own a motor vehicle) and public liability insurance.
Optional Insurance
Other types of insurance can help to protect your business assets, customers, employees, business owners and earnings.
What is Public Liability Insurance?
Public liability insurance covers you for third party death or injury. It helps protect you and your business when you’re liable for negligence. For example, if your business causes:
- Injury or death, for example, if your food makes a customer sick,
- Negligent advice (for some occupations), for example, claiming a generator can power a business in a blackout and it doesn’t, causing a loss,
- Nervous shock which causes emotional distress or a recognised psychiatric illness,
- Property damage, such as causing a fire,
- Consequential loss, which occurs in very rare cases where negligence causes another business to lose expected revenue.
What Does Public Liability Insurance Cover?
When protecting your business, it’s important that you know what your insurance policy covers. Every policy differs, but some typical inclusions for a Public Liability policy include:
- Legal costs incurred in the defence or settlement of a claim,
- Cover for others that may be acting on behalf of your business when the incident occurred,
- Loss or damage of goods – which are in your care custody or control which you do not own,
- Loss or damage of someone else’s property that occurs while performing your service,
- First aid expenses at the time of an incident,
- Injury to others who sustain injury whilst visiting your premises.
Limitations of Public Liability Insurance
Despite the general comprehensiveness of public liability insurance, there are a few things which are not covered by the insurance. These include:
- Employer’s responsibility for injured workers (workers compensation),
- Aircraft products,
- Asbestos,
- Punitive damages (damages awarded where a judge believes you were so negligent that extra damages are awarded),
- Liquidated damages,
- Gradual pollution,
- Product recall,
- Liabilities assumed under contract which you would not be liable for at common law (that is if you enter into a contract which assumes the liability of others, if the law would not consider this your liability had you not signed the contract).
Contact Tony Love Lawyers
If you are injured as a result of negligence, get in touchwithTony Love Lawyers. You should contact us right away following your injury so that we can gather as much evidence as possible for your case to ensure the best outcome is delivered to you, the injured party.