If you are a professional business owner, one of the basic insurance policies you should have is professional liability insurance. This is one of the policies which can be built up or down depending on your needs, however there are some clauses you should have regardless of the business you are running. Here are some of those inclusions.
Professional Negligence Cover
Everyone can have their off-days, but that is where you run the risk of causing an incident which could impact the reputation of your business, so this is why you need professional negligence cover. A client could sue you for a whole host of reasons and for example, you could have given some poor advice or not fulfilled an order to the expected standards.
When this happens, the client could be well within their rights to make a complaint; especially if the incident caused them physical or financial issues. However, for this incident to come under professional liability insurance, the claim must be made from the aggrieved party, since other insurance policies handle automatic compensation. Make sure you know exactly how professional liability insurance could help you.
Legal Defence
You need to be able to successfully defend yourself in court in the event of a prosecution. While you will probably have an attorney who you pay to do minor legal work, court proceedings are a lot more expensive and sometimes a little extra help is needed; particularly if it looks like the case is going to stretch out over several weeks and your lawyer’s bill is only going to get bigger and bigger. The professional liability insurance should be able to help cover these costs.
Compensation
After the court case then comes the settlement. If the former client won, then you need to be able to pay whatever has been ordered of you; this could involve paying for whatever they have lost financially, some compensation on top of that, and potentially even their legal bills.
This can add up to thousands and thousands of dollars and it might be money which your company simply doesn’t have, but luckily for you compensation clauses are common inclusions in professional liability insurance.
Continued Protection
Businesses fold all the time but the statute of limitations means that someone may file a claim against you years after your business has ceased trading. You may not have access to the significant funds if you have either retired or moved on in your professional career, so why should your new venture or your current lifestyle be affected by a simple mistake you or one of your employees made years ago?
This is where professional liability insurance can save you. Most policies have a clause which means that you will be protected long after your business closes, and this might just be the life-saver you did not know you needed.
The beauty of the professional liability cover is it can truly be adjusted to fit any business you may need it to. It is one of the crucial policies which you must ensure covers you exactly where you need it to, so speak to a professional insurance advisor today to find out more about the benefits it could have for you.
