UK Public Liability Insurance

The following is a guest post.

Insurance is often seen as complicated but can be a necessity depending on your circumstances. There are many types of insurance including auto insurance, life insurance, short term disability insurance and long term disability insurance just to name a few. There is another type of insurance that is very important if you own a business and that is public liability insurance.

What is Public Liability Insurance?

In general, a public liability insurance policy usually provides protection against your legal liability for death or bodily injury to non-employees while you are operating your business. It also normally covers loss and/or damage to third party property that happened during the operation of your business.

This insurance is often overlooked or discounted by business owners because everyone thinks that no one will ever get hurt or die while you are performing a duty for your very own business. Your business follows all of the safety rules and you work hard to instill a safety culture in your employees. The sad thing is that accidents do happen and they aren’t ever expected.

If someone gets seriously injured or tragically passes away in the course of running your business it could potentially shut your business completely down. There will be lawsuits and you could lose everything if you aren’t properly insured and your business is found liable.

The other application of public liability insurance involves loss and/or damage to third party property that happened during the operation of your business. I can imagine that this may happen more often than most would like to think but it definitely isn’t as ultimately devastating as an injury or loss of life. Property can be replaced while lives cannot.

There are many businesses in which property may be inadvertently damaged. Lawn care businesses may inadvertently damage a customer’s yard or a professional handyman could mistakenly cause additional damage unrelated to the problem he was trying to fix. There could be a costly amount of damage in either of these cases and if you’re properly covered with insurance it won’t sink your business.

The point to remember is that people get injured, pass away, or cause damage to another person’s property in the normal course of business even though it is not their intent. If you’re not properly insured this could be a costly mistake. If you do have public liability insurance you may be able to survive to live another day.

Read Your Policy

Of course, you always need to read your individual public liability insurance policy to make sure you understand exactly what is and isn’t covered. I have read my personal insurance policies and have noticed that some things I thought were covered weren’t and other things that I didn’t think would be covered actually were.

Who honestly knew that nuclear bombs aren’t covered by my insurance policy? I didn’t until I read it so make sure you read your insurance policy and know what is covered.

This guest post has been made possible by Direct Line for Business.