Public Liability
Legal liability to third parties for accidental injury or property damage arising out of your business or premises.
Also calledPublic Liability (Industrial and Non-industrial) · Public Liability Insurance Act policy · Commercial General Liability
First thing, todayDo not admit liability. Help the injured person, then notify the insurer before you reply to anybody.
- Tell the insurer now, not after the assessment.
- Admit nothing and settle nothing and pass every letter to the insurer the day it arrives.
- Every document within the time the insurer asks for it.
When you would claim
- A visitor, customer or passer-by injured on your premises
- Damage to a neighbour's property from your operations
- A legal notice or a police complaint naming the business
- An incident under the Public Liability Insurance Act where that policy applies
What insurers most often rely on
- Liability admitted, or a settlement agreed, without consent
- Late notification of a claim or of circumstances
- Contractual liability assumed beyond what the policy covers
- The activity or location not declared
- Fines and penalties claimed, which are generally excluded
On a liability claim these are opening positions. Opening positions are argued, and the insurer expects them to be.
The documents
half of it belongs to the other side11 items, and half of them are somebody else's. Get the allegation in writing early: an insurer cannot tell you what is covered until it can read what is being said against you.
- Claim form and the incident report
- The third party's notice, complaint or plaint, forwarded unanswered
- Photographs of the location before it is repaired
- CCTV footage and the visitor or gate register
- Statements from employees who witnessed it
- Maintenance and inspection records for the area involved
- Medical reports and bills where injury is alleged
- Any correspondence with the third party
- Cancelled cheque and bank details in the insured's name, for the NEFT payment
- Details of any other insurance covering the same risk
- The claim made against you in writing, and your own assessment of what is actually owed on it
Next
Liability Claim: The First Response
In liability, the damage is usually done in the first conversation, by somebody being decent and apologetic to a person who has been hurt.
Most often lost by: Admitting liability.
Read the limit of indemnity
No sum insured and no average clause. A liability policy is capped by its limit of indemnity, written as one figure for any one accident and a larger one for the year, with defence costs sometimes inside that limit and sometimes outside it. Which of the two it is matters more than the figure.
Filed under: Liability · Third-party and legal claims
Claims that sit next to this one
the same allegation, answered elsewhereProduct Liability
harm done after the goods leave
Public Liability Act Policy
the statutory cover for hazardous substances
Contractors' and Erection All Risks
liability on a site you are building
Had a notice and not replied to it yet? Report a loss or call 92514 56334.