Professional liability insurance, otherwise known as personal injury insurance or negligence insurance in the UK, is simply a form of insurance that helps to protect professional people from being sued for malpractice and accidents that may happen in their work place. However, professional liability insurance has many different types of coverage and therefore it is important to understand all the differences between your type of insurance.
Most of us have seen and heard of professional liability insurance because of the large amount of money that companies spend every year on paying claims from employees and other clients that have been injured on the job. Many times these settlements are quite large and if you are sued and lose, the cost to the company can easily exceed $100 million, depending on how much damage was done and how many claims were filed against the company. Even if you win your case, the damages are often much smaller than the initial sum of money that was paid out. Professional liability can take a heavy toll on a company and can also be quite costly to repair in the end.
While professional liability insurance is one of the most common forms of insurance for lawyers, doctors, accountants and other professionals, it is not the only type of insurance that can be used to cover the costs associated with a lawsuit. Employers are typically responsible for some or all of the legal fees of their employees, so many employers provide their employees with a basic liability policy that covers all the legal costs of legal action taken by the employee. This kind of insurance is also very helpful if you find yourself in a situation where you have to hire a lawyer for your case because your insurance policy is too small or does not cover the same cases that are covered under your employer’s policy.
One of the biggest differences between liability and bodily injury insurance is that when a person is sued and loses, liability will pay all the money that was lost due to the injury. If the person was not injured during the work time that they had, then the person will get nothing. If an accident was at the work site, liability will pay for medical bills and other expenses that may occur because of the accident.
When it comes to liability insurance for doctors, attorneys, accountants and other professionals, the benefits and limits are usually quite different. While professional liability only covers personal injuries on the job, medical insurance will pay for any medical bills that are incurred by a patient who is sued as a result of an accident that occurred while they were being treated in the office.
Some life insurance policies are designed to pay a portion of funeral costs of someone who dies while they were insured. Professional liability policies are sometimes called workers’ compensation insurance and are sometimes referred to as workers’ compensation insurance policies because they can pay for lost wages, lost medical bills, pain and suffering, disability, permanent disfigurement, emotional distress, loss of earnings and other similar things that might happen to a worker when they are sued for malpractice.
If you are an employee, then your company may provide you with an employee’s compensation insurance, and this type of professional liability insurance provides an employee’s compensation when they are injured while on the job. In most cases, an employer will require you to have this type of insurance in order to perform the job you are employed to do. If you are a business owner, this type of insurance is necessary if you own a business where the risks to your employees are high, because there are a lot of potentially dangerous tasks you can do while on the job.
In the past, businesses would have their employees sign up for a business liability insurance policy and have their insurance purchased through their employer, but now many employers purchase liability insurance for their employees. There is no longer a need to have a separate policy for each and every employee, because the liability insurance policy can be purchased on a pay-as-you-go basis and it is purchased based on the size of your company or your business. You can get a professional liability insurance quote today by going online and doing some simple research.
