When owning a business, you will more likely have to interact with so many different customers and clients who want to use your goods and services or merely passing through your premises. In such environments, injuries and damages are inevitable.
As a business owner, you are bound by the Australian Consumer laws and occupational health and safety regulations to ensure that you are responsible for the safety of third parties in your business. It is often not easy to foresee damage or have oversight over product defects which may happen.
This is where public liability insurance comes to the picture. It offers some protection from coss that is associated with claims brought against your business. To get your small, medium-sized business one of these, some legal requirements should be present
Although this is not a statutory requirement, SMEs which interact with the public space such as parks and construction, it is essential to check if the liability insurance is in place first. Your business requires this insurance if the general public can visit your premises even if it is home-based and if your company has off-site events that the public can attend.
It should also include the scope of your SME including all the associated entities. This policy also covers suppliers, members of the public and the community at large. In some cases, it can include directors, partners, and employees.
Like all other insurance covers, it has different types and levels of protection. The level of cover depends on the risk assessment of the SMEs activities. For instance, if your business is labor intensive, you will require greater protection than a person whose business is office based. Also if the product you sell has some degree of risk, it will directly affect the policy.