Claims – The Scary Statistics
- Your business is 10 times more likely to face a claim from one of your current or ex-employees, than you are to suffer a fire.
- Employment claims have jumped 44% since 2009 to almost 250,000 per year.
- The average cost of even successfully defending employment claims averages £11,000
- Race discrimination awards average over £ 30,000 NOT INCLUDING legal costs
- Directors can face up to 2 years in Prison for serious Health and Safety breaches
Legislation and red tape are often the bane of all our lives. There are however occasions when it is vital that all of the correct procedures are followed to the letter because the consequences of not doing could seriously damage your business.
Take HR as an example, gone are the days when you could simply sack someone on the spot if they did something that warranted it. More and more these days a ‘no win,no fee’ solicitor will back an employee or ex-employee to take you to a tribunal and try and bring a case against you for anything from unfair dismissal to sexual discrimination. Often, the quality of your HR policies and paperwork can mean the difference between successfully defending claims or not.
Health & Safety is even worse. Failures in this area could mean that someone dies, but again, robust policies, procedures and audit trails are vital to prevent accidents in the first place but if the worse happens, God forbid, you need to be able to demonstrate that you did the right thing.
Both of these examples are issues that you will all face, every day and they represent a growing risk to both your business and also to you personally and this will only get worse in our increasingly litigious society.
How do you protect yourself?
You can do everything you can to minimise the risk but you can never get rid of it all, so you need to talk to an Insurance Broker who understands your industry and can arrange Insurance to protect you and your business.
JCB Insurance for example can arrange a Management Liability Insurance policy for you that covers both individuals managing the business and the organisation itself. Not only will it pick up the costs of defending claims, but it will also pay for awards made against you.
The cost of regulatory claims and investigations by organisations like the HSE, VOSA, Environment Agency and HM Revenue and Customs can also be picked up under the policy.
Remember, even successfully defending an HR case like wrongful dismissal costs an average of £ 11,000.
In addition, to help guide you through the minefield of legislation, there are free legal, employment and regulatory helplines available to policyholders to help you deal with situations correctly.
The Management Liability Policy doesn’t hide behind small print either, for example it will even pick up a claim when you’ve not followed any of the correct HR procedures, all it means is that you have to pay an excess where you wouldn’t if you’d followed Insurer’s advice. And it needn’t cost the earth, for example, if your annual turnover is around £1m, premiums are as little as £ 930.00. That’s a lot of peace of mind, for not a lot of money.
About JCB Insurance Services
JCB Insurance are Brokers and Risk Managers specialising in protecting businesses involved Construction and associated industries including Plant Hire. This means that we are perfectly placed to advise and work with you to ensure an effective programme of risk management and insurance for you and your business.
We are keen and competitive at arranging all types of Insurance from Employers’ and Public Liability, Motor Fleet and Plant through to specialist insurance like the Management Liability policy described here.
Give us a try, you never know, it could save you a fortune or even keep you out of jail…!
