Whilst there are many types of business insurance designed to protect your company, have you given any thought to the individuals with most responsibility for the running of your business – your Directors, Partners and Officers?
What is Directors and Officers Insurance?
Directors and Officers Insurance is an insurance product designed to protect company directors, officers and senior managers from claims made against them personally as a result of their actions taken in the corporate environment.
Whilst other insurance products protect your business as a whole, once someone is made a director, officer or partner of a business, their personal responsibility, duty of care and liability increases significantly. They can therefore face personal claims for the work, decisions or actions they take whilst managing the business.
Directors and Officers insurance will protect those named individuals insured on the policy and indemnify the legal costs of defending a claim or compensation awarded as a result of the claim.
What does D&O insurance cover?
Typically, claims or allegations of negligence arising from their decisions and actions made whilst managing the business. Likewise, companies and the individuals who work for the company must abide by a number of rules, acts and regulations – breaching these can also mean you face claims.
Examples of the areas you may find claims arise from include:
• Failures of health and safety policy
• Wrongful trading
• Breach of duty or trust
• Employment practices
Is Directors and Officers Insurance Necessary for your business?
If you have Directors or key staff who manage and are responsible for the success of your business, you may want to consider purchasing the cover to protect your staff at this level.
Also consider that without the cover your Directors and Officers could face a greater risk of
• Being disqualified from being able to hold the position of Director
• Have to cover legal and damages costs for claims brought against them
• Face criminal prosecution
If you have any questions about your small business insurance and whether D&O insurance could be important for you to consider, you can speak to us here at Anthony Jones. Call us on 020 8290 9080 or email us at business@anthonyjones.com.
