Public Liability Insurance
By taking our time, we know you, your business and your insurance needs
What Does Public Liability Insurance Cover?
Public Liability insurance covers your business if someone has an accident and gets hurt while they are on your premises. Equally if you accidentally damage someone else’s property, your Public Liability insurance will protect you.
If a member of the public sues your business for damage you are held responsible for, your Public Liability insurance will cover the cost of your legal defence and any compensation awarded.
Public Liability insurance doesn’t cover any injury to yourself or your employees. It also doesn’t cover you if one of your employees sues you. These events would be covered by Employer’s Liability insurance.
Do I Need Public Liability Insurance?
It is not a legal requirement to have Public Liability insurance. However, without it your business could be bankrupted if a claim was made against you and you didn’t have Public Liability insurance to protect you. The legal costs associated with a claim and any settlement awarded could be high. Even if you win a legal case it’s unlikely that the damages awarded to you would cover all your costs.
If your business interacts with the public during the course of the working day, it’s important to have Public Liability insurance. It could be that customers and suppliers visit your premises or you meet them at theirs. If something happens during the course of one of those visits and it’s your fault, you’ll be deemed liable for any costs arising as a result.
In some instances other businesses may only agree to work with you if you have Public Liability insurance in place.
How Much Public Liability Insurance Do I Need?
The amount of Public Liability insurance you need will depend on a number of factors. These include:
- The size of your business
- The type of work you undertake
- The size of projects you work on
- The risks your business is exposed to
- How much of your work involved interactions with the public.
The minimum amount of Public Liability insurance a business would take out is £1 million, rising to £10 million or more. We would look at the risk factors for your business and advise accordingly. However, Public Liability insurance is inexpensive and, with soaring personal injury claims and the increase in the amounts awarded in compensation, we would recommend that you buy as much cover as you can afford, at least £10 million cover.
“I have used Anthony Jones for a couple of years now and have always found them to be extremely professional. They take the hard work out of finding a new policy and always have the best interest of the customer at the heart of everything they do.”
Cathy Durham
Property Investor
Need more
information?
Please call Tom Cowap or the team on 020 8290 9080 to talk through your Public Liability insurance needs. Alternatively, you can email us at business@anthonyjones.com
FAQ’s
Some of our most asked questions, answered below:
I am a start-up business, what insurance do I need?
There is a balance between adequate and appropriate protection of the business whilst keeping initial costs to a minimum. Evaluate your business risks and the need for insurance under these 4 headings:
- Assets (both physical and intellectual);
- Revenue streams;
- Liabilities to Third Parties (including contractual obligations);
- People (your staff including their importance to the business).
Usually, a package type policy covering your physical property, annual revenues, Employer’s liability and Public/Product’s liability is required. The only insurances required by law are Employer’s Liability, Motor Liability (if you have cars/vans etc) and Engineering Inspection of lifting and pressure plant if you have them.
How much Professional Indemnity insurance do I need?
If you work in one of the professions for whom Professional Indemnity insurance is a legal requirement, the amount of cover you need may be mandated by your regulatory body. You should check on their website to find out.
Your clients may also specify within their contract the amount of PI cover they require you to have in place to protect the work you do for them.
If the amount of cover you need is not pre-determined, you can work it out by thinking about the size of projects you work on and your potential exposure to risk. We can help you calculate what this might be. Our recommendation would be to buy as much cover as you can afford.
Do I need Professional Indemnity insurance?
If your business provides advice, professional services or creates designs, it makes sense to have Professional Indemnity insurance to protect you in case anything goes wrong.
For some professions it’s a legal requirement to have Professional Indemnity insurance in place. Professions for whom it is mandatory include:
- Solicitors and barristers
- Financial advisers
- Architects
- Accountants
- Some healthcare professionals, such as doctors, vets, dentists and surgeons
- Chartered surveyors
What is Professional Indemnity insurance?
PI insurance protects your business if a client claims the advice, service or designs you provided were faulty in some way. It will cover the cost of any claim for compensation.
What is Directors & Officers insurance?
Also called D&O insurance, this covers the cost of any compensation claims your business needs to pay if a director or key manager is alleged to have done something wrong during the course of their work. This might include negligence, breach of trust, making a mistake or failing to do a task.
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