Business liability insurance guide

What types of business liability insurance covers are there?

There are a range of different types of liability insurance, including employers liability insurance (workers compensation) and directors and officers liability insurance (for companies). The three main types of liability insurance are:

• Public liability
• Professional indemnity
• Product liability insurance

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What is the difference between the three types of cover?

The three of these are easy to get confused because they all protect you from lawsuits where people are suing you for harming them and/or their property. The difference lies in how you allegedly harmed them. Here's how they differ:

• Public liability. This protects you when the damage is unrelated to your professional service or when you provided a service that caused damage that you couldn't have expected (ie, you weren't reckless). Example: You own a massage parlour and a client slips and falls in your building.
• Product liability. This is a subset of public liability insurance, and it comes into play when you sell someone a product that ultimately does the damage. Example: As a masseuse, you sell someone some lotion that damages their skin after they've applied it at home.
• Professional indemnity. This will come to your aid when you've provided a faulty professional service due to negligence or recklessness. The damage can include injury, property damage, financial losses and even emotional trauma. Example: As a masseuse, you damage someone's ligament by stretching them inappropriately.

Do I need all three?

This is dependant on your business, and the types of risks it's exposed to. If you are unsure, speak to a broker.

Public liability insurance

What is negligence?

Negligence is defined as failing to take due care to avoid causing injury or loss to someone else. For negligence to be proven in court, it must be established firstly that there was a duty of care, and secondly that it was breached. The plaintiff must also be shown to have suffered an injury or loss and that the injury or loss was caused by the breach of duty.

Is public liability insurance compulsory?

If you own a business, public liability insurance is a necessary form of cover and while not compulsory, it should be taken out as a matter of course due to the crippling financial losses that could result from a successful public liability claim (we’re talking millions of dollars).

Do I need public liability cover for events?

Public liability insurance is also recommended for anyone responsible for holding any sort of public event and it is often a compulsory requirement of doing so, which is regulated through a licensing authority.

Product liability

I thought this is general liability insurance?

Also referred to as general liability insurance, it is often included as part of a public liability insurance policy and is important to have if you provide products to the public. That’s because claims due to product failure can be extremely expensive even if unfounded due to the considerable legal defence costs often involved.

What types of products are covered?

Different types of product liability insurance are designed to protect against the failure of different types of products, and typical examples include protection from liability for damage caused by software, injury caused by equipment and illness caused by food or beverages.

Professional indemnity insurance

Who needs it?

It was previously only required by a few professions such as accountants, lawyers and medical practitioners, where the results of their actions could have particularly devastating consequences. But now professional indemnity insurance is widespread, providing protection to a range of different professionals including insurance brokers, financial advisers and media representatives.

Is there professional indemnity cover for specific industries?

There are different kinds of professional indemnity insurance for different types of professions, such as medical indemnity insurance for medical practitioners and architects indemnity insurance for architects. And some professions require their members to hold professional indemnity insurance as a condition of being able to practise.

Talk to a broker about business liability insurance

Written by

Gary Ross Hunter

Editor, Insurance

Gary Ross Hunter was an editor at Finder, specialising in insurance. He’s been writing about life, travel, home, car, pet and health insurance for over 6 years and regularly appears as an insurance expert in publications including The Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian and news.com.au. Gary holds a Kaplan Tier 2 General Advice General Insurance certification which meets the requirements of ASIC Regulatory Guide 146 (RG146). See full bio

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