Public liability insurance is essentially an insurance product designed for business owners.
It safeguards your business in the event that a member of the public or a client brings a lawsuit against it.
If a lawsuit is brought against your business, public liability insurance will provide coverage for the cost of your legal defense, in addition to any settlement money or compensation you will have to pay out to the claimant.
If an individual becomes injured because of your business activities or while on the premises of your business, the relevant authorities could claim the medical treatment and transportation costs from you.
In such cases, your costs would be covered by public liability insurance. Mark Vanzo from www.publicliabilityaustralia.com.au explains the need of public liability insurance furthermore.
Public liability insurance does not cover any injury to your employees or yourself. Additionally, it does not provide protection you if an employee brings a lawsuit against you.
This type of coverage would be handled by employers’ liability insurance; this is a legal requirement for businesses that employ more than one other individual.
This insurance provides coverage for legal costs and compensation claims made against the company, should a third party receive injuries or his or her property becomes damaged while at your location or when you are doing work at their home or commercial property.
In addition, this will include transportation costs and the cost of medical treatment incurred by any involved government agency if this amount is claimed from your business after an accident.
Importance of a Business Having Public Liability Insurance
As a business owner, you are not required by law to have public liability insurance; however, it is likely that you will need it. Public liability insurance will provide coverage for your costs if an individual sues your business; without this coverage, your business could be rendered bankrupt by unexpected legal costs.
Public liability insurance is especially essential if your business is involved with interacting with the public. For example, this type of insurance should be considered if you own a café, a barber’s shop or a grocery store. If a customer is involved in an accident on the premises of your business, they could bring a lawsuit against the company. Coverage from public liability cover ensures you will not be left holding the bill.
Even if your business does not have a physical location, you may still require public liability insurance coverage for your own protection. For example, if you are a consultant, you could inadvertently cause damage to the property of a client while visiting him or her. Even if you operate a business that involves selling products from home, there is always a possibility that a customer could bring a lawsuit against you.
There are some cases in which your clients could insist that you have public liability coverage prior to them hiring you. For example, if you are a live performer, there are certain venues that might require that you are insured prior to them allowing you to use their space.
Below are details of some of the best motivations to establish or upgrade public liability insurance policy for your business right away:
1. Avoiding Financial Disaster
If you opt out of getting public liability insurance coverage, a single mishap could end up costing you hundreds of thousands of dollars. As if the legal costs were not burdensome enough, any subsequent medical bills could force smaller companies entirely out of business.
In the majority of cases, public liability insurance provides coverage for the costs of any medical bills and the legal battle, freeing your mind to concentrate on the business rather than on constant financial and legal nightmares.
2. Safeguarding Your Customers
If you are a business owner who deals with the public on a regular basis, you have both an ethical and legal responsibility to safeguard them to the best of your ability. Part of this is to give your clients peace of mind; however, there are many customers who unfortunately do not consider whether the company is insured until it is too late.
There are business owners who can fall into the same trap quite easily; however, your business cannot afford to undertake the resulting risk. Having an insurance policy that can provide adequate coverage ensures that your customers will get the compensation they both need and deserve if the company does something that impacts them negatively.
4. Boosting the Reputation of Your Company
There are many customers who choose to conduct business only with companies that are fully insured, in the event that something goes amiss. If you apply for a government contract or submit a bid for a construction project, you could be rejected if the competition has better insurance in comparison to yours.
In addition, potential customers may link having insurance with you operating a reputable company. This is typically the only type of company with which they have interest in conducting business. The best chance you have of getting hired is having public liability insurance coverage with the right level of indemnity coverage.
5. Accidents Do Happen
While it is always important to safeguard against harm being caused to your valued customers, an issue can still come about even if you strictly adhere to all of the applicable health and safety requirements.
Businesses can be in operation and go for extended periods without the occurrence of accidents; however, one is bound to eventually take place; it is unfortunately just a natural part of running a business in an imperfect world.
You just cannot afford to put your livelihood in jeopardy by being complacent concerning the risks that are associated with the particular line of work which is carried out by your business.
Hopefully, these examples and reasons have pointed out to you the significance of getting public liability insurance for your company. This kind of insurance policy can be quite easily overlooked until it is needed.
However, when the need for coverage is realized, it might be too late to prevent financial ruin. As such, if you have not already done so, you should start the process of getting your company the safety buffer provided by public liability insurance.
