This should help explain:
What is public liability insurance?
Public liability insurance covers the cost of legal action and compensation claims made against your business if a third party is injured or their property suffers damage whilst at your business premises or when you are working in their home, office or business property.
This also includes the cost of medical treatment and transportation costs incurred by the NHS should they claim this amount from your business following an accident.
What level of public liability cover should I buy?
The amount of cover that your business will require in this area largely depends on the level of risk that it undertakes on a daily basis. You will probably find that there are accepted minimum standards for the particular industry you operate in, and there may be requirements specified by your clients in this area. Before making a decision on how much cover to buy, you should always check out both of the above
In particular, if working on a government or local authority contract you will usually find that they stipulate a minimum level of cover in this area and it's common for this to be between £5 -£10million.
Is not having public liability cover insurance illegal?
The only type of business cover that would be considered a legal requirement is employers' liability insurance (although this only applies if you have one or more staff members in your employment and there are some noteworthy exemptions). Choosing not to purchase some of the covers that come as part of an overarching business insurance policy will not land you in trouble as they may not be appropriate for your business type, and are therefore not a legal requirement.
It is however important to have public liability cover in place to ensure that your business is protected financially, and also to make sure that the interests of the public and your clients are protected. You'll additionally find that some businesses will be required by clients to have certain insurance covers in place. Two examples being; a DJ who would need their own public liability insurance and a financial adviser who would usually be advised to have professional indemnity cover in operation.
What is an example of a public liability claim?
A plumber was working on a residential property situated in a block of flats. The plumber made an error and failed to fit taps correctly during the repairs. As a result, the error caused water damage at the flat which also extended to some of the properties below.
What did the insurance company pay for? The insurance company in this circumstance paid for corrective repairs to the damage caused under the public liability section of the policy, costing a total of £20,000.
What did the insurance company not cover? The plumber had to pay the excess of £250 in order to facilitate the claim.
Where do your public liability quotes come from?
MoneySupermarket.com have teamed up with Simply Business to provide you with a business insurance comparison service which allows our insurance partners to provide live instant quotes based on the information given on our quotation form.
The quotes returned during the comparison process are real and the insurance documents can be viewed - and the policy bought - within minutes, all without even having to leave our website.
My search returned no quotes, why is this?
Occasionally our comparison tool will be unable to return an instant quote if your business needs are too complex. In this case it may take us two to three days to get back to you with an accurate quote to more specifically address your business insurance needs.
I've filled in the quote form, what happens next?
Once you've filled in the required information and clicked on "submit" you'll be taken to the results page. In normal circumstances you should receive anywhere between one and seven quotes from a variety of insurers and you'll be able to view the policy documentation, excesses and exclusions for each product to allow you to decide which policy to purchase.