Professional Liability policies
protect you from the liability of errors and omissions in your
professional work.
This liability is usually excluded from "General Liability" coverage
and must be purchased separately.
One of the main purposes of a Professional Liabiltiy policy is to offer
a form of defense should you be named in a suit.
Especially when dealing with high-risk areas, such as Medical
Liability, the cost of defense can be very high, even if no
negligence is found on the part of the accused.
If a Professional Liability policy claim is covered, the policy will
help pay for this cost of defense, as well as awards
for bodily injury and
economic damages. Professional Liability policies do not usually
pay for punitive damages or other assesments of that nature.
Professional Liability is written on one of two types of
forms:
"Claims Made" or "Occurence". A Claims Made form
provides
coverage only during the time the policy is kept in force. You can
typically purchase an "Extended Reporting Endorsement", often referred
to as a
"Tail", after you terminate your policy, which extends the period of
time in which you can submit a
claim to the insurance company. While this does not extend coverage
into the future, it allows you to submit a claim during the Tail period
for acts committed while the policy was active. This is very important
as claims can arise years after an incident occurs.
An "Occurrence" form usually allows you to file a claim at any time for
incidents that occurred during the policy period as long as limits of
insurance are available. The advantage
to this type of form is that it removes the additional expense of a
"Tail" at the end of the policy period.
Common Examples of Professional Liability policies are:
Medical
Professional Liability
Home Health Care Liability
Lawyer's
Professional Liability
Architect's
Professional Liability
Beautician's
Professional Liability
We have multiple
markets available to us, and no two policy forms are exactly alike. If
you are unsure what type of coverage you need, please contact us.
Other
Items of Consideration
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Medical
Office and Hospital Program:
Our
agency specializes in insuring all things medical. If you are a doctor
or a hospital system, check out our Medical Program.
Small
Business Insurance: If
you are a Small Business owner then there are many exposures that you
should insure against to prevent your entire operation from
shutting down due to one loss. With our Business Owner's Packages, or
specific
lines of insurance, we can help keep your business financially secure.
Large Business Insurance:
Large
businesses have a wide variety of equipment, exposures and operations
that they need to insure. It is important to know that you have an
agency you can trust and a policy you can rely on.
Bonds:
Our
agency writes a wide variety of bonds. Bonds are often required by law,
so be sure that you are properly bonded.
Special
Events: Special
Event insurance is for any organization or person that is holding a
certain type of function where they need special Liability insurance
for the event.
Workers' Compensation:
Workers'
Compensation is needed to protect you and your employees from costly
lawsuits involving workplace accidents. |
| If you are
interested in a quote for any of these lines of insurance or are still
unsure about what exactly your business might need, please contact us. |
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| What
does "inside" and "outside" the limits mean? |
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Cost
of defense on Professional Liability policies is written either
"inside" or "outside" the Limits of Insurance. If costs are written
"inside", then it means that any costs associated with your defense
reduces your Limit of Insurance. For example, if you have $1,000,000 of
insurance and the company pays $250,000 in defense costs, then only
$750,000 is left to pay for awards.
Defense "outside" the Limits of Insurance means that defense
costs do not reduce the limits available for an award. In the above
example, if you had a $1,000,000 policy, you would still have that
$1,000,000 available for awards assessed against you, despite the fact
that the company paid an additional $250,000 to defend you.
Sometimes the cost of defense and/or claims expenses can be written as
a separate limit alltogether or could be limited in other ways by
policy language. For example, some policies offer defense costs
"outside" but limit these "outside costs" to a dollar amount equal to
that of your Liability limits.
Cost of defense inside or outside is one of the most important aspects
to know about your Professional Liability policy. Even then,
your costs could be limited by the policy language as explained above.
Call our office today at (309) 685-1010 to learn more about this. |
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