Liability Insurance
Worker's Compensation
Did you know it is a legal requirement for all businesses in India that employ workmen to take out Workmen’s Compensation insurance policy? This insurance ensures that all employees are protected if they are injured, killed or contract a disease during the course of their work.
Workers compensation insurance pays benefits to a worker who incurs a job-related injury or illness. For purposes of workers’ compensation, an injury is deemed to be job-related when it arises out of employment activities and when it occurs in the course of employment. Liability to employees under the Workmen’s Compensation Act 1923, Fatal Accidents Act 1855 and at Common Law is covered under this policy. Workers compensation insurance assures that injured workers get medical care and compensation for a portion of the income they lose while they are unable to return to work.
Public Liability Insurance
Public liability insurance protects you and your business against the financial risk of being found liable to a third party for death or injury, loss or damage of property or ‘pure economic’ loss resulting from your negligence. The legal cost and expenses incurred in defending the case with prior consent of the insurance company are also payable subject to certain terms and conditions. This type of insurance will only cover third party claims (i.e. not your own employees).
The policy offers a benefit of Retroactive period on continuous renewal of policy whereby claims reported in subsequent renewal but pertaining to earlier period after first inception of the policy, also become payable. This is a mandatory policy to be taken by owners, users or transporters of hazardous substance as defined under Environment (Protection) Act 1986 in excess of the minimum quantity specified under the Public Liability Insurance Act 1991.
Professional Indemnity
It’s the kind of insurance that protects your business from financially crippling and often reputation-damaging claims by unhappy clients. Professional indemnity insurance, also known as Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance, is the insurance that covers your company, or you individually, in the event that a client holds you responsible for a service you provided, or failed to provide, that did not have the expected or promised results. Professional indemnity insurance protects you from legal action taken for losses incurred as a result of your advice. It provides indemnity cover if your client suffers a loss – either material, financial or physical – directly attributed to negligent acts.
Below we list some of the danger areas your business could be exposed to:
- Negligence: or breach of duty of care
- Intellectual property: unintentionally infringing on others’ copyrights, trademarks, broadcasting rights, any act of passing off
- Loss of documents/data: damaged, lost or stolen data and documents belonging to your clients This policy is suitable for doctors, lawyers, accountants, architects, engineers, brokers, consultants, advertising agencies etc.
Product Liability
Commercial General Liability Insurance
Owning and operating a business comes with plenty of responsibility and accountability. In today’s uncertain world, technology and case law are constantly changing the liability landscape. Even if you operate with the utmost care, sometimes things do go wrong.
Under a general liability insurance policy, the insurer is obligated to pay the legal costs of a business in a covered liability claim or lawsuit. This policy offers the option of protection for bodily injury, property damage, advertising injury (damage from slander or false advertising) and personal injury to a third party for which a company is found to be legally liable.
The insurance company also covers compensatory and general damages. General liability insurance policies always state a maximum amount that the insurer will pay during the policy period.
Director's & Officers Liability Insurance (D&O)
In recent years, directors and officers liability insurance has become a core component of corporate insurance. As many as 95% of Fortune 500 companies maintain directors and officers (“D&O”) liability insurance today. Publicly held companies have two to three times as many claims made against their directors and officers than privately or closely held companies. At its most basic, D&O insurance protects directors and officers against legal claims for wrongful acts performed by them and connected to their corporate positions.
Wrongful acts include omissions, errors, misstatements, misleading statements, neglect or breach of duty. Beneficiaries are the directors, officers or the corporation itself. Suits can be bought for various reasons. Shareholders might sue for insider trading. Creditors might sue for misrepresenting the financial health of the company. Competitors might sue for anti-trust or unfair trade practices.
Directors’ and officers’ liability insurance (D&O) offers your individual directors and officers the protection and security they need from suits arising out of wrongful acts committed or allegedly committed in their capacity.
Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI)
The number of lawsuits filed by employees against their employers has been rising. While most suits are filed against large corporations, no company is immune to such lawsuits. With these numbers on the rise, it is little wonder that many companies are turning to Employment Practices Liability Insurance (“EPLI”) to manage this risk. As the name suggests, it provides protection for an employer against claims made by employees, former employees, or potential employees. It covers many kinds of employee lawsuits, including claims of:
- Sexual harassment
- Discrimination
- Wrongful termination
- Breach of employment contract
- Negligent evaluation
- Wrongful discipline
- Deprivation of career opportunity
- Wrongful infliction of emotional distress
Employers can protect themselves from these and other types of employment claims by securing EPLI coverage.
Clinical Trials Liability Insurance
Growing competition in the drugs & pharma industries is driving companies to find solutions or cures to large scale diseases or degenerative conditions. In this environment the commercial advantages to the firm that produces the first approved drug for a disease that affects a large patient population can be enormous. At the same time, the liabilities associated with trials can be significant for all of the parties involved in the trial.
All clinical trials must first be pre-approved by the regulatory body through the submission of a detailed clinical test protocol to that regulatory body. Finally, every human subject in a clinical trial must review and sign a detailed patient-informed consent document. Nonetheless, these measures may not provide absolute protection against legal liability—especially if one of them is not properly satisfied.
Failing to uphold rigorous standards for their clinical trials, sponsor companies may expose themselves to the threat of costly litigation. Clinical trials liability insurance can help protect pharmaceutical companies from some of the expenses associated with a liability lawsuit. But companies with poor risk management practices may experience difficulty obtaining such insurance, and/or may have to pay more for less protection.
Crime Insurance
As businesses embrace new technological developments, they become inadvertent hosts to advanced exposures and an entire set of new risks. Fraud involving computers is fast becoming a problem in today’s technologically enhanced society. Couple that with issues such as job insecurity and reduced company loyalty and we have an environment that increases the probability of an employee being dishonest. Whilst stringent internal controls and sound administrative and management practices help limit exposures, they can never eradicate the risk completely. That’s where a crime policy is needed.
Commercial Crime policies are now becoming increasingly popular amongst the Industry in view of 2 fold requirements – contractually imposed Insurance requirements by customers and the high cost and probability of indemnifying customers for consequential claims / losses.
Crime policies provides
- Employee Theft Coverage
- Premises Coverage
- Transit Coverage
- Depositor’s Forgery Coverage
- Computer Fraud Coverage
- Third Party Crime or Employee Dishonesty Cover