What is Public Liability insurance?
Public Liability is there to protect your business against the financial risk of death, bodily injury or damage to property suffered by any third party including members of the general public or other business you work with. The levels of cover available normally start at $5 million to $30 million.
Examples:
- A visitor slips in the toilet on a wet floor resulting in a badly injured ankle that require physiotherapy.
- A visitor, tripping over loose carpet in reception, twists their knee requiring surgery and months of physiotherapy.
- A plumber damages a pipe, which leaks into a business’s server room – not only causing thousands of dollars worth of property damage but the resulting damage means the business is unable to carry out work for several weeks.
What is Personal Injury Cover?
Death, bodily injury, sickness, disease, disability, shock, fright, mental anguish and mental injury
False arrest, wrongful detention or imprisonment, and malicious prosecution
Wrongful eviction
Assault or battery (unless excluded)
Libel, slander, defamation of character or invasion of the right of privacy, occurring during the period of insurance.
What is Property Damage Cover?
Actual physical loss of or physical destruction of tangible property
The loss of use of tangible property which has not been physically damaged but cannot be used due to physical damage to other tangible property which occurs during the period of insurance.
Public Liability Insurance FAQs for Business Owners
As a small business owner you are responsible to people that come into contact with your business – including clients, providers and any other individual who might use your business services. If an accident or damage occurs whiles you conduct your business, the affected person may make a lawful claim against your business, which can result in expensive legal fees as well as the obligation to pay the injury or damage you or your business may have caused.
If you work with customers or clients, that visit your business or you visit their business premises, or manufacture any products, public liability insurance is your best protection against potentially costly claims for damages against your business.
No matter what size your business is, Public and Products liability claims can easiy run into millions.
Each business is unique, and there is no ‘one solution fits all’ on how much public liability insurance you may require. Sometimes the amount of public liability insurance you need may be prescribed to you by a contract or agreement.
As example your company is hosting an annual ball at the local convention centre. The convention centre requires a $20 mil public liability policy to limit their exposure.
There are few levels of cover available to address your public liability insurance needs and we can provide cover options of:
$5 million
$10 million
$20 million
$30 million
Public liability insurance claims can be exceptionally expensive. It is important you speak to one of Grace Insurance brokers to assist in advising the amount of cover you may require. Very few businesses have the cash flow available to protect themselves against a costly public liability claim.
Grace Insurance recommend public liability insurance to cover your business for:
First aid expenses at the time of an incident
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
Injury to others who sustain injury whilst visiting your premises
This is a summary only, the full details of what is and is not covered, please read your Product Disclosure Statement.
Workers compensation claims
Punitive damages (damages awarded where a judge believes you acted so badly that extra damages are awarded)
Gradual pollution (Pollution insurance policy available)
Products recall (Product recall insurance available)
Asbestos
Aircraft products
Some scenarios and examples that may be covered under your public liability insurance:
Client slips and falls, injuring themselves on your premises
Your guard dog comes lose and bites a client visiting your showroom
While you are installing a new light, your hammer drops and smashes the clients newly installed Italian washbasin.
Your foot slip while installing a television antenna and smash a big hole in the clients roof.
While painting you accidentally bump your paint tray all over a clients new LED television.
You sell hip replacement stainless steel pins you manufacture in Australia. One of the pins is defective and result in injury.
Professional services or advise are covered under its own separate class of insurance.
Public liability insurance does not cover losses from you neglecting your professional advise or services to clients.
Professional indemnity insurance protects you and your business from claims of financial loss arising from an act, error or omission in the performance of professional services. Find out more about professional indemnity insurance here.
The fastest, most accurate way to find out the cost of public liability insurance for your business is to get a quote. The rate is determined by insurers using basic information about your business.
Get a public liability quote now.
Premiums you pay for public liability insurance are generally tax deductible provided they are connected to your business’ capacity to earn an income or to protect its assets.
Yes, there are a few that allow a stand alone public liability insurance policy. 98% of the time clients select a combination of public and products liability insurance.
How Can A Public Liability Insurance Policy Protect Me?
A liability policy will generally be issued with two limits – one for public liability and one for products liability. Normally they have the same limits, for example $20,000,000 for public liability and $20,000,000 for products liability.
What is product liability and how does it differ from public liability?
The term product liability is introduced for the purpose of applying a limit during the period of the policy for claims which are caused by a product of the business.
“Product Liability means your legal liability in respect of personal injury or property damage caused by or arising out of any products or the reliance upon a representation or warranty made at any time with respect to such products; but only where such personal injury or property damage happens after physical possession of such products has been relinquished to others”
What is considered a product will be defined in the policy and is usually anything manufactured, sold, constructed, erected, installed, grown, treated, altered, modified, repaired, serviced, bottled, labelled, handled, sold supplied, resupplied, distributed, imported or exported by your business and includes the packaging, labelling, advice, warnings given or omitted in connection with any products.
Example of Products Liability
You manufacture flour which you then supply to a large bakery. The flour is contaminated, the bakery does not know that it is contaminated and uses it in their cakes and bread, after they have made their cakes and bread they become aware of the contamination and all of their cakes and bread have to be destroyed as a result of your contaminated flour.