If you're launching a new business, you may have heard about public liability insurance and wondered what it is and why it's important. Any new business owner needs to understand how this type of insurance works and how it can protect their business from potential risks.
What Does Public Liability Insurance Cover?
Public liability insurance covers your legal costs if someone makes a claim against your company for damages or personal injury caused by your operations. This could include things like property damage or slips, trips and falls on your premises. If you work with customers outside of your office, public liability insurance will also cover the cost of defending any claims made against you while away from the workplace. In addition, this type of coverage may be able to protect your company in the event of an advertising dispute or copyright infringement lawsuit, but you need to discuss this carefully with your broker first.
How Does Public Liability Insurance Protect My Business?
Public liability insurance is particularly important for small businesses because the financial burden of defending a claim can be overwhelming. In addition to covering legal costs associated with defending a claim, public liability insurance also pays out compensation to claimants if their claim is successful. Without this type of coverage, small businesses would be unable to afford the cost of defending themselves in court against claims—which could put them at risk of going out of business altogether.
Who Needs Public Liability Insurance?
Public liability insurance is essential for any business owner who interacts with customers face-to-face or has customers visit their premises. This includes retail stores, restaurants, gyms, salons, professional services companies (such as accounting firms) and more. Even if you don't have customers coming into your office on a regular basis but still interact with them face-to-face (perhaps at trade shows or industry events), then you should consider investing in public liability insurance as well.
What You Need to Bear in Mind
Public liability insurance is an essential investment for any new business owner who provides products or services to customers face-to-face or has customers visiting their premises regularly. And remember that you may still need to defend a case in court, even if you are confident that you were not at fault. This could be an extremely expensive proposition as it is, but this type of insurance will typically cover those costs.
Getting More Information
Get in touch with an agent to learn more about public liability insurance. They'll ensure that you have the right type of coverage in place from day one.
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