Public Liability Act Policy
The statutory no-fault cover a business handling notified hazardous substances has to carry, for relief to people affected by an accident involving them.
Also calledPLIA · Public Liability Insurance Act 1991 · Environmental Relief Fund policy
First thing, todayReport the accident to the district authority and to the insurer the same day, and do not clear the site.
- 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
- An accident involving a notified hazardous substance
- Injury or death of a person near the premises or the vehicle
- A claim made to the Collector under the Act
- A notice from the district authority or the pollution board
What insurers most often rely on
- Quantity handled above what was declared, so the premium and the limit were set on the wrong basis
- The substance not one of those notified under the Act
- Relief claimed above the statutory scale set under the Act
- The Environmental Relief Fund contribution not paid
- Claims for damage to property, which this cover does not reach
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, policy schedule and the full wording
- The list of hazardous substances handled and the quantities
- The intimation sent to the district authority
- FIR, post-mortem or medical records where there is injury or death
- Photographs of the site and the substance involved
- Any award or direction of the Collector
- Evidence of the Environmental Relief Fund contribution being paid
- Consent to operate from the pollution control board
- Details of any other insurance covering the same liability
- Cancelled cheque and bank details in the insured's name, for the NEFT payment
- The relief claimed under the Act, with the schedule it is worked out from
Next
Liability Claim: The First Response, and what it shares with this
The liability playbook applies from the hour the notice arrives: acknowledge, admit nothing, and send it to the insurer the same day. Anything said to be helpful is said on the record.
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 elsewherePublic Liability
the wider cover, bought by choice
Employees' Compensation
your own people, whom this Act does not reach
Product Liability
harm done by what you sold
Had a notice and not replied to it yet? Report a loss or call 92514 56334.