Employers liability insurance
Who it’s for
Most businesses will require some form of liability insurance. This can be, public, product and employers liability insurance.
The only one that is legally required, under UK law, is employers liability, or EL cover.
Any business, whether a sole trader, partnership, limited company, corporation, limited liability partnership or charity, that has employees, must have valid employers liability insurance in force.
Even if you only have volunteers, or helpers, you may find that there is a legal requirement for you to have cover in force.
Why it’s important - examples
In 1969, it became law for any company, partnership or emplying organisation, to have in force liability insurance for injury to employees. The current minimum limit of indemnity is £5,000,000. This has to be provided by an insurer that is approved and regulated to offer this cover, the vast majority will be UK registerd insurance companies. Or, overseas insurers with a UK trading division. Nearly all provide the minimum limit of indemnity doubled at, £10,000,000.
The cover is now governed by the original Employers Liability Act and it‘s many, many revisions over the years.
At it‘s basic level, if you have an employee and they ae injured, you could and in 99% of cases, will suffer a substantial cost. We are inundated in the UK with adverts on the television and the radio making it very easy for you to consider making a claim. Once a solicitor, who deals with this day in and day out, gets involved the costs will go through the roof.
You may think that if the employee was at fault, for example they didn‘t use a ladder correctly and fell off, you could defend yourself with contributory negligence.
In reality though, however much the employee has contributed to the injury, if they are injured you will pay out a fair chunk of money.
Added to this, you can also be fined up to £2,500 per day that you do not have this cover in force. The fine system does not always come into play, but it is still there as a deterent.
How businessinsure can help
We are a business insurance broker. If you need a quote, come to us and we can do the searching of the market and the underwriters, for you.
We take your information over the phone in a 5 to 10 minute phone call. Then, we then scour the market to search for a combined liability insurance quote for you, including EL cover where required.
Employers liability is not available in isolation or on it‘s own form most insurers. The cover is nearly always combined with public and/or products liability insurance. For this reason, we look for a combined quote.
More information
Employers liability is available for all types of business or trade. We are unable to cover certain, high risk, trades, such as scaffolders. EL insurance, for short, is not avaialable on its own, only as part of a combined liability insurance or business liability insurance package.
Where we are unable to provide you with a quote we will always try an point you towards a broker that specialises in your trade.
The UK government, over the years, has sought to put in protection for employees. One of the many ways this is done is through employers liability insurance. UK plc does not want employees being injured at work, with the business being negligent, and not receiving any recompense.
For this reason, employers liability is one of the few commercial insurance covers that you cannot apply to many exclusions to. For example, most clerical businesses have automatic cover for the staff working anywhere in the world, without restriction.
When you get an employers liability insurance quote, you are by law to receive a key facts or summary of cover. This document will contain details of any restrictions or exclusions that do apply.
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