Best things to know about public liability insurance

Public liability insurance is a policy that is required by law to carry. The Australian Government defines this insurance as a policy that covers you against 3^rd party death or injury, and property damage, that is directly caused by your business or the actions of your business. In other words, if you serve bad food and someone gets sick, you will be held liable for their well-being, and any pain and suffering that will be added on. Public liability insurance will cover the expenses that have been caused by the food.

There are things that liability insurance does not cover. It will not cover any type of injury or death to an employee. This is a separate policy that you will need to obtain. It also does not cover anything that is not caused directly by the business. For instance, if you get into a car wreck and injure someone. Just because you are a business owner does not mean that everything you do is business-related. It also will not cover any product recalls that may occur. You also need to know that a typical policy of this type will not cover any business services that you do.

You can be held liable when someone, or something, is damaged or injured. A lawsuit will more than likely have been filed unless you can work it out on your own. Once the judge looks over the case and hears what everyone has to say, they decide if you are to be held liable. If you are, and it falls under the coverage, a public liability insurance policy will cover all the damages, except for any extra penalties that have been tacked on to the suit due to gross negligence.

When you are looking to get a policy, or even if you already have one, there are a couple of things that you need to check. First, ask yourself if everything that you need to be covered, is actually covered. This means that if you have contractors come onto your property to fix your roof, would your policy cover an injury to one of them. If your policy does not have protection for this type of scenario, then either upgrade the policy or get a new one.

The second thing that you need to check is if the policy covers what you do. For instance, if you are the contractor going to someone’s business to fix a roof, would you be covered for damages done to the building. Most of the time this is a completely different policy because you are giving a service to someone, which is not covered under a basic public policy.

Make sure that you have the correct insurance for your business, and that you have enough coverage for what you do. Each business will have different needs. That is where the business plan helps. It will detail what you do, what you need, and will pretty much show you the insurance that you should have. Do not neglect this type of insurance. If you think you need a certain amount to skim by, go one level higher to be safe.