For a lot of people and companies Public liability insurance is compulsory nowadays to get on-site or to move into a store. You are required to have it so that you are covered for any third party injury or third party property damage you are responsible for. You will be responsible to pay for the damage that you are responsible for or for the injury you have cause to a person.

Does public liability insurance cover my employees?

Yes public liability insurance covers your employees, but rarely nowadays does it cover your sub-contractors, if you do not make your sub-contractors get their own public liability insurance, then you may be in for a shock, if you are lucky then then most insurers just have an increased excess, usually of about $20,000 dollars, if you are unlucky then you will have no cover at all and this situation is becoming the norm with most insurers.

Why doesn’t all public liability insurance in Australia cover sub-contractors?

As Australia becomes one of the most litigious nations in the world, insurers find an increasing need to cover themselves from sub-contractors and It’s not hard to understand why when you look into it more. Say a subcontractor comes onto your job-site and injures themselves, all of a sudden they have a financial loss and they will look to recuperate that loss. Now the only way you can get away from proving that their loss was not your responsibility, is to prove you had a safe job-site, but how can you have a safe job-site, if somebody has just injured themselves.

Now you can get a little idea into why insurers don’t want to insure Sub-contractors.

How do I cover myself?

You need to make sure that firstly all of your sub-contractors have their workers compensation cover. Most states don’t allow sub-contractors to have workers compensation insurance, unless they are a Pty Ltd company. So you would generally only get Sub-contractors that have formed a Pty Ltd company and have a current certificate of currency provided to you for both their Public liability insurance and their Workers compensation insurance and in a worse case scenario make sure they have their public liability insurance and at least some form of accident cover or income protection and their public liability.

For more details on insurance and public liability insurance for your business operating in Australia, call and discuss your risk with one of our brokers. Bluewell insurance brokers are committed to delivering low cost quality protection to small and medium Australian business.