What is computer contractor PII?
It is easy to get tied up in jargon and phrases when you’re sorting out insurance cover for your business, and PII is a phrase you may have heard of but which you may not fully understand, or have never looked into properly. It stands for professional indemnity insurance, and it is a type of cover which pays out if you face legal action because of a mistake you have made professionally. Computer contractor PII is simply a form of this cover which is geared specifically towards computer consultants.
PII can be used by a company as a whole or by one freelance individual. It gives you financial support towards a legal defence should you ever face action because of an error you have made professionally. Typically this means being sued, to use a colloquial term.
Even actions which are completely invalid and unfounded may have to be defended properly in a court. This means hiring legal help and although cover can’t take away the action, it can remove the financial strain associated with it. The normal circumstances covered by this kind of policy are mistakes and omissions, acts of negligence, and claims you have breached confidentiality or copyright. It also normally pays out if you are accused of unintentional defamation, or if the employees of a computer contractor company are accused of acting dishonestly and perhaps stealing from or defrauding a client.
Computer contractor PII will normally pay out towards your legal defence no matter how far your case gets. Should you end up in the High Court, for example, it will still pay for your legal help, provided you are still within your cover limit. The limit applies because insurance companies do not agree to pay out towards an indefinite amount of cover should you need to use your policy. However, limits can be set quite high, to hundreds of thousands or even millions of pounds. Of course, not every company will need this, but you will need to decide what is suitable for you.
This kind of insurance also pays out towards the cost of compensation should it be awarded against you. Normally a policy will also allow you to add some optional extras to her, such as public liability insurance an protection for a period after you winds down a business or retire, as no longer trading is not a defence against a legal claim relating to something which happened in the past.
Computer contractor PII can also be arranged to protect you against things which happened in the past. This might sound strange, but is often referred to as ‘retroactive cover’, a clause which allows you to claim if you faced a legal action in future which refers to an event which happened before you even bought the insurance, although of course you will need to have had no notification you are going to be sued before you took out the policy.
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