Public Liability Insurance Claims

After recently doing an interview regarding Public Liability Insurance, I realised our ongoing issues as brokers. We have some sway over underwriters and claims, but ultimately, it is their decision to decide how the claim is paid out or defended. When a recent security guard company had a claim, instead of trying to defend my client, the insurer opted just to pay it out, regardless of my client’s lack of negligence or guilt for want of a better term. So when the renewal ticks over for the next period of insurance, the underwriter just turns around and says, your client has had an at-fault claim, and you need to pay us more this year, and oh, by the way, we are going to give your client a $50,000 excess, which a Small business is never going to be able to pay without putting the house up on mortgage.

It all hardly seems fair on the client. The insurers should have some vested interest in keeping the Ambulance chasers away and making sure they know each claim is going to be hard as hell to make, and they are going to have to fight it and cost themselves a heap of money in the process. Instead of this, they choose a rollover campaign, and then the client pays for it with an increased public liability insurance premium in the next year. Also, their liability excess goes up in some cases.

 

Public liability should protect the little guy and help him stay in business, not just keep increasing costs for them every year. I know there are clients who just don’t do the right thing or are completely unprofessional, but indeed, there is a happy medium in the mix somewhere.