{"id":462,"date":"2011-04-26T13:16:44","date_gmt":"2011-04-26T12:16:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/?p=462"},"modified":"2015-04-13T14:27:49","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T13:27:49","slug":"public-liability-insurance-why-you-need-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/2011\/04\/public-liability-insurance-why-you-need-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Liability Insurance &#8211; Why You Need It"},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes : <\/span><\/span><p>As a small business here in the UK you may wonder why you would need Public Liability insurance (a form of <a title=\"business insurance\" href=\"http:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/business-insurance.html\">business insurance<\/a> that is\u00a0recommended here in the UK if you run a business where members of the public come to your premises or you go to their premises).<\/p>\n<p>Let me give you an example that shows why you should seriously think about taking out public liability insurance and the costs that might be involved if you decide to &#8220;save money&#8221; by not taking\u00a0 it out.<\/p>\n<p>My mother is having some windows replaced in her home, she is using a local firm that was recommended to her by neighbours and friends at the church that she attends.\u00a0 Last Thursday the workman arrived as normal and put down a plastic dust sheet to protect the floor while he did some work on the porch.\u00a0 Shortly afterwards the postman knocked with a letter that mum needed to sign for.\u00a0 Mum opened the door and slipped on the plastic dustsheet that it seems had not been stuck to the floor.\u00a0 <!--more-->The next thing we knew was that mum was being taken to hospital because she had (we thought) either sprained her ankle or torn a ligament &#8211; when she got to the local A&amp;E it was discovered that she had actually broken her ankle badly enough that it needed an operation to put pins into it.\u00a0 This means that mum will not be able to walk for several weeks (at least), that she will be in hospital and a convalescence home for a while as she lives on her\u00a0own so would be unable to cope and get to physio twice a day\u00a0and that other members of the family have incurred unexpected costs in traveling to the hospital, attending meetings with medical professionals, social workers\u00a0etc.<\/p>\n<p>Now then, if you think about the eventual\u00a0cost to the company that employed the worker these could include :-<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>awards of damages<\/li>\n<li>legal fees<\/li>\n<li>costs and expenses<\/li>\n<li>and even recovery of costs of NHS treatment and NHS ambulance costs (more details about this are on the <a title=\"NHS Injury Cost Recovery scheme\" href=\"http:\/\/www.dh.gov.uk\/en\/Managingyourorganisation\/NHSInjuryCostRecovery\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">Department of Health site here<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Given that there are firms of solicitors that will act for people with claims on an no-win, no-claim basis these costs could all mount up and if you are not insured these could even be enough to put your firm out of business.<\/p>\n<p>One leading provider of public liability insurance here in the UK\u00a0is the Bluefin Insurance Group, this firm of UK wide <a title=\"Business insurance brokers\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bluefingroup.co.uk\/businesses\/insurancesolutions\/\" target=\"_blank\">business insurance\u00a0brokers<\/a>\u00a0have an in-depth knowledge of a wide range of commercial sectors and can often provide quotes for public liability insurance that is related to the needs of your industry sector rather than be a one-size fits all insurance policy that may not be suitable for your business.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes : <\/span><\/span>As a small business here in the UK you may wonder why you would need Public Liability insurance (a form of business insurance that is\u00a0recommended here in the UK if you run a business where members of the public come to your premises or you go to their premises). Let me give you an example [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-advice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.forestsoftware.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}