A guide to professional liability

Professional Indemnity

Therapists, trainers, consultants and hundreds of other self-employed or contracted personnel offer their advice or skills as a service to customers. Whilst jobs are completed to the best of their ability and mistakes are rare, they can happen. You should consider taking out indemnity insurance if you:

• Provide advice to your clients.

• Handle data belonging to a client or business.

• Are responsible for a client’s intellectual property.

• Provide a professional service and could be challenged on your work.

Professional advice can’t always work out perfectly of course, a marketing consultant, for all their experience, can’t always predict return on investment with 100% accuracy, but if the advice was a mistake in the first place, their customer may have a case to claim compensation against them. This is when professional indemnity can protect you.

Public Liability

If a customer or third party was to injure themselves or have something damaged as a result of your business activities, you could be held liable. This means that you would have to pay the compensation claim and any legal expenses incurred. Public liability insurance can cover these costs.

Almost every business should have some form of public liability insurance because despite all the precautions under the sun, accidents can and will happen, and the wrong end of a law suit can spell disaster for a growing business.

Product Liability

Product liability insurance is designed to protect the end user of a product by providing compensation if a product is defective. Though product liability largely relates to manufacturing firms, your business could be held liable for a faulty product wherever you fall in a distribution chain. It may be important to have product liability in place if you are a:

• Business making products available to the public.

• Manufacturer or retailer who supplies its own-branded products.

• Business that repairs, alters or services an existing product.

• Company who repurposes or rebrands an existing product.

• Importer of products from places where the safety requirements differ from the country it is sold in.

Libel and Slander

Libel and slander insurance covers you against a law suit should someone feel that you have written or said something about them in a defamatory statement that is false or inappropriate.

Slander is the term for anything that has been spoken and libel for anything written. If the statement is published and publicly available, an accusation that the untrue statement has negatively affected reputation and trust in them, their business or brand could be brought against you. Libel and slander insurance can cover you against a claim such as this.

• Employers liability – Whilst it may sound strange that this policy doesn’t cover your employees for personal loss or damage, the truth is, the majority of our professional customers are ‘one man bands’, meaning they work alone.  By not including employers’ liability insurance we can avoid confusion and of course, keep the price down. If at any time you take on an employee, permanently or temporarily, give us a call. We can provide employers liability as an optional extra whenever you need it.

• Tools, stock and business equipment – Protection against theft, loss or damage to your equipment can be included usually providing they can be stored securely when not in use.

• Accidental damage and loss of earnings – This cover means you can claim for loss of earning should you injure yourself or are stopped from being able to work.

Discounts

As well as finding the right combination of cover, being eligible for discounts is a great way of getting a bit more off your insurance premium. Membership of professional associations and industry bodies such as the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy is a great way of accessing industry support and training and helping show insurers you are a ‘lower risk’. Speak with your insurance advisor about possible discounts for your professional association membership.