You need to have a good idea about how to protect your business when things have gone wrong. In this very challenging business world, having the right insurance policies can help to save a working empire if something catastrophic occurs. Take professional indemnity and public liability policies, they sound similar but are in fact very different. That difference being public liability is designed and packaged expressly for claims by members of the public for injury, illness or other damage caused by your business or something within it’s operation. Whereas professional indemnity covers claims by clients for professional mistakes, negligence or just incompetency. These are very seriously different issues. The latter is generally referred to as PI and acts as as consumer protection mechanism to compensate a business’s clients in the event they suffer loss due to an act, error or omission as a result of services or advice your company provides the client that proves to be wrong and causes them problems. Generally a client will have discovered there is a problem and will be in touch with his/their legal team. Once that haappens, the offending company will have massive poroblems looming. This is where their PI policy can mean the differene between sinking in obscurity as a failed supplier, or paying out for the damage caused but being able to survive themselves to fight another business day.
There are many types of business insurance; some are legal requirements but others are useful add ons. The unwary newbie might well want to save precious funds by cutting out these extras but as illustrated above this can be a rediculously costly error if the worst does happen. Insurance is not something you can buy later after the event. there is no ‘get out of jail free’ card in those instances.
