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Why your business should deem public liability cover a priority, not an option

According to statistics cited by Co-operative Legal Services and from the Health and Safety Executive, there are yearly 64,000 non-fatal injuries to construction workers, with 80,000 construction workers suffering from work-related illness. Causes of work-related illness have included slips or falls from a height or through lifting heavy objects.

When evaluating this information, it’s simply not worth taking the risk when deciding whether to purchase public liability insurance cover for your business. With each of those 80,000 illnesses occurring throughout an industry that is regulated by strict health and safety guidelines, it shows just how much of a threat accidental injuries to our workforce or the general public can be in our day-to-day jobs.

When you consider these statistics provided by the Health and Safety Executive, it begs the question: just why are so many tradesman and businesses choosing to go without public liability insurance for their day-to-day trade?

This article will explain to you just why public liability insurance should be made a priority for your business.

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What is public liability insurance?

Firstly, we must clarify exactly what public liability insurance is and what it does and does not cover. Available from tradesmansaver.co.uk, there are many public liability policies to suit the demands and size of your business. You can simply leave Tradesman Saver to find a policy that works for you.

Public liability will cover you in the event of a third-party claim made against – and made as a result of – your business. When we talk about third parties, we are simply referring to people who are not employed by you. These people are most often the general public, but can also include other contractors and operators on-site.

Public liability insurance will cover you against legal costs of the court judication as well as any compensation or damages that are awarded against your business, in addition to any medical and transportation bills that arise through the third party’s injury or claim.

The coverage of this type of insurance does not, however, extend to claims made against your business by your employees; this is where employers liability insurance comes into play instead.

Public liability insurance reduces costly business expenditure

Public liability insurance will vastly reduce your long-term expenditure in the event of third-party injuries or a compensational claim. With over 1,000 prosecutions and pay-outs made against businesses for workplace disputes each and every year, the compensation and legal fees that come with a court case can be enough to put your business into administration or insolvency.

By paying just the small policy fee for public liability insurance, you are essentially investing in your company’s long-term future and safeguarding yourself against the potential threat of a costly compensation claim that you think will never happen to you.

Covers small-scale and large industrial claims

Depending on the expanse of your liability cover, you will save yourself millions by making public liability insurance a priority for your business. When considering your day-to-day work on a building site, accidents that can occur rarely affect one individual; those accidents could affect many members of the general public at the same time.

The financial strain that would be placed on yourself and your ability to trade would be catastrophic if you did not have the relevant insurance policy to cover the costs that your business has incurred as a result of the accident. Depending on the scope of your cover, it will also open up new opportunities for your business to expand into new markets.

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