Following the recent government lockdown we have been giving thought to ongoing insurance matters. The following is worth consideration for most businesses and charities:
- Business premises. If you have completely closed your business premises and will not be able to undertake a weekly inspection of them please let us know. We are expecting all insurers to provide an element of flexibility when it comes to business premises being unoccupied, but we would rather have highlighted instances of premises being unoccupied and not inspected regularly to ensure we don’t encounter any issues in the event of a claim.
- Business activities. Many businesses are trying to adapt to keep trading, modifying their usual working methods (e.g. offering a delivery service). Again, we expect insurers to be flexible about these sorts of changes, but would always rather get underwriter agreement to be on the safe side. As such please let us know of any changes in your business activities that you are implementing.
- Liability insurance. Both Employer’s and Public Liability policies, and liability law generally, is based around the need to take reasonable care (with a policy responding to allegations that you haven’t, and injury or damage has occurred as a result). In the current climate reasonable care will certainly include following government guidance as far as you possibly can, both in the workplace and when engaging with members of the public. Failure to do so won’t invalidate your liability cover, but following the guidance should reduce the risk of claims.
- Homeworking.
- Employer’s Liability insurance will automatically extend to cover employees working from home. However, we would recommend that you ensure you are complying with Health and Safety (H&S) requirements for all staff now homeworking. We are not H&S consultants nor qualified to advise on the subject in any detail, but as minimum you should be looking at workstation risk assessments, including some form of PAT testing of electrical devices (even if it is by the employee themselves on a very basic level).
- Work equipment. Not all policies will automatically cover you for equipment taken away from the business premises. Many of you will have All Risks (i.e. away from the premises) cover in place, but you need to be sure that the sums insured are sufficient to cover all the items, in total, for the replacement cost as new.
- Cancelled travel plans. This is a very fluid situation, and we are expecting changes in regulations to be announced in the near future. Our current understanding is that any airline or tour operator unable to deliver either a flight or a package trip will ultimately be required to provide a full refund. Obviously, in the interest of their own cashflow (which we entirely sympathise with) they may well rather offer a rescheduled trip or credit voucher. Should rescheduling not be an option, any funds that you are unable to recover through refunds should be covered by your Business Travel Insurance if you have it in place with us. A final note on this – in all likelihood insurers will only pay out for cancellations for the period covered by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advice against travel (either generally or to specific areas). If you choose to cancel a trip further into the future than is currently addressed by the FCO advice the insurer may deem this “disinclination to travel” which will NOT be covered.
- Premiums payable by instalments. If your premiums are being paid by instalments, either direct to the insurer or with a third party provider, and you think you may have an issue maintaining the payments due to cash flow challenges, please let us know ASAP so we can try to assist in finding a solution.
- Government assistance. This is very much beyond the realms of our expertise, but we have good working relationships with a number of law firms and accountants. If you would like any advice on what assistance may be available and do not have an advisor that you feel that you can rely on please let us know and we will try and put you in touch with one of our contacts.
As ever, don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any queries or questions.