The business benefits of health & safety consultant professional indemnity cover
Protecting yourself against unpleasant legal claims may not be the first thing on your mind if you are setting up as a health and safety consultant. But as a professional, you’ll be expected to provide the highest level of service to your clients. If any of them for some reason feel you have not done this, simply because of a perceived or real mistake, they may take legal action. Health & safety consultant professional indemnity cover is a simple insurance policy designed to guard against such eventualities.
Imagine if you work for a building company, which employs you to visit a new site and make recommendations about how to keep workers safe. Should you miss something in your assessment, a worker could then be injured, which may result in a legal claim if your error or omission can be linked to the incident.
Defending yourself in court will mean hiring legal professionals who will have to be paid. Should you lose the case, compensation may be awarded to the other side, and this may also run up a big bill. Health & safety consultant professional indemnity cover will pay for not just the legal advice you need but also the compensation amount awarded to the other side.
All this might seem rather extreme, but legal cases are not uncommon and can bring down some companies who do not have the right financial backing or the correct insurance in place. It can also take away some of the stress and anxiety associated with sorting out a legal claim.
No policy will protect someone up to an unlimited amount. Understandably, there is a ceiling attached to policies beyond which an insurer will not payout. Therefore it is important to make sure you have the right level of cover in place. Smaller companies will not need protection for millions of pounds worth of bills, but larger companies might.
The level of protection will affect the premium, and excesses can also be agreed to which will also affect the price. When getting hold of a policy, also make sure that you are clear on what it includes. Many will have a lot of extras, including protection for things like allegations of breach of confidence or copyright, the loss of a client’s important data or documents, and may even include a degree of public liability insurance.
Health & safety consultant professional indemnity cover can also be arranged to cover events which happened in the past, meaning if a letter arrives to notify you of a case which dates back to something which occurred before your policy started, you will still have protection. A policy will protect you right through the legal process, from first hearings all the way up to the highest levels of law in the land – meaning you will not normally need to fear a case spiralling out of control provided you have the right level of cover in place.
Comments
Leave a Reply