Recently we had a Client, who had two shops, with flats above them. One of them suffered a fire where a refrigeration unit over heated and set alight the shop.
Now, with shop insurance unless there is a huge amount of stock, Insurance companies can get a pretty good idea of how much stock almost any given type of shop would hold against its square foot and cubic capacity.
Anyway the owner never reported it for a month, which alone looked odd. Then they said that the documentation we had sent months earlier was in error and the value of the premises was not as was on the policy, but substantially higher.
It had one awful smell to this, which was becoming worse daily, and it ended up with us informing our Professional Indemnity (PI) insurance company. They were very helpful and after some serious investigation, it transpired the insured party and claimant had in fact misrepresented numerous details to us which alone invalidated the claim.
As a broker we act in good faith when given information by a client as not all policies require a site visit, and in difficult economic times, it’s a known fact that fraudulent claims will rise substantially.
The end result was that whilst we were completely exonerated of any failings, the fact that we had PI insurance made all the difference, as the insurance company looked after us really well.
OK it’s another level of cover that you may feel is just too much to pay when times are tight, and given all the other insurances relating to your business. But having good PI cover, where you supply a service or give advice is now almost an integral cost requirement and regardless of many end Clients now pretty well insisting on their suppliers showing proof of cover to win business, to go without is not the right thing to do.
So if you think you might need PI cover please give us a call and we will look after you.
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