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What is the difference between Public liability and professional indemnity insurance? Most business owners need public liability insurance to operate but what about professional indemnity insurance? Some people can be confused by the differences between the two, so we explain how they are different and why a business would need either insurance cover. Public liability insurance: about negligence. Most Australian businesses must have public liability insurance due to contractual requirements. This protects your business against accidental third-party injury or damage that occurs as result of your business activities. It’s designed to cover compensation claims from members of the public, which can include suppliers, customers, clients, and passers-by. You are also covered for injury or damage during a client’s visit to your business or when a member of staff visits your client’s premises. Public liability insurance protects your company when someone is injured, or property is damaged during, due to, or arising from your business operations. (It’s not the same as products liability insurance, which relates to damage or injury caused by products that you distribute, supply or manufacture.) Some examples of public liability insurance cases from business.gov.au  that illustrate where it comes into play could include: Should a person sue your business, they’d have to prove your business was negligent. APRA’s latest estimated total public liability claims payments by Australian insurance companies for the 2019 financial year sits at $1.32Bn Professional indemnity insurance: about professional advice Professional indemnity insurance protects businesses that provide professional services or advice to others. It’s a financial safeguard for individuals and/or businesses to cover for claims that arise out of any actual or alleged breach of professional duty. For example, a business might have made mistakes or neglected to do something in their professional service. In other words, it covers your legal costs as well as compensation claims that arise from some failing of your professional advice or service. However, the purpose of professional indemnity insurance is not to cover your dishonest, fraudulent or criminal acts – that’s an exclusion. Examples of when professional indemnity insurance would come into play include: From the list above, you’ll see that as a business owner, you can be liable for the negligent actions of your employees. Indeed, human error is the top reason for claims against Australian businesses. Professional indemnity insurance is compulsory before you can legally operate in some industries, and it’s much broader than just the traditional professions of doctor, lawyer, and accountant. You can also find out about your industry’s requirements for such insurance on the business.gov.au website. The latest total professional indemnity claims payments from APRA’s 2019 figures is estimated to be $1,1.37Bn. The difference: public and professional The differences between the two insurances really come down to two words: ‘public’ and ‘professional’. When members of the public make a claim against your business for injury, illness, or damage, your public liability insurance cover should protect you. Should a client make a claim against you for your professional mistakes or negligence, your professional indemnity insurance would cover you. The information provided in this article is of a general nature only and has been prepared without taking into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. If you require advice that is tailored to your specific business or individual circumstances, please contact Resilium directly.

Running a successful business requires more than just a good business plan, strategy and customers. You’ll also want peace of mind that should things go wrong, your business and its assets will be protected. Having the right business insurance can mean the difference between staying in, or going out of business. With so many insurances on the market, which ones are the most important for businesses? Some insurances are required by law, including Workers’ compensation insurance (in some states) and Public liability insurance. However, there are other types of business insurances that we would see as equally important as they can cover your business assets, employees, potential earnings, clients and more. Here are some of the key business insurances to have in Australia today and we outline what they do and don’t cover. Speak to Emsur’s insurance adviser for more information. Other important business insurance Other important business insuranceBusiness insurance policies generally offer a wide range of individual insurance policies all under a single package designed around your specific needs and potential risks. Policies vary vastly as far as type and level of cover depending on the Insurer. While you may be interested in insurance that covers your employees and customers, there are also other business insurances that can cover your business assets, earnings, and reputation. 1. Employment Practices Liability insurance Mistakes can happen even in the best-run companies. Employers can be liable and exposed to various liabilities as far as their responsibility for the safety and well-being of their employees. While business owners can take out workers’ compensation insurance for their employees, Employment Practices Liability Insurance is another key insurance that is becoming increasingly popular. Employment Practices Liability insurance provides organisations with cover for actions taken by employees against their employers, whether it be for alleged discrimination, unfair dismissal and sexual or workplace harassment. Australia is becoming increasingly litigious, with claims of unfair dismissal, sexual harassment and racial discrimination more common than ever. Find out more about Employment Practices Liability insurance here. 2. Professional Indemnity insurance Professional indemnity insurance is designed for businesses that provide professional advice, which requires some particular skill, training or qualification. For example, an Accountant may be sued for advice that sees their clients audited and penalised for their tax return. It’s similar with a whole host of other professions and essentially covers your business from financial losses due to claims made against you for your professional services. This insurance is really quite important as far as protecting you and your company from potential lawsuits and damages that might be granted. Find out more about Professional Indemnity insurance here. 3. Directors’ and Officers’ insurance While Company Directors are meant to make decisions in the best interest of the business they run, even the most competent people can make mistakes. However, even when the intentions are good, Company Directors may still have claims brought against them and be held personally accountable for these claims. Directors and Officers Liability Insurance protects Company Directors and Officers of a corporation or business against legal liabilities that might arise while managing an organisation. People in these positions may have claims brought against them by shareholders, employees, competitors, statutory bodies or even the corporation with which they work. Find out more about Directors’ and Officers’ insurance here. 4. Business interruption insurance As your business grows, the greater your fixed costs will be and the more expensive it will be if an unfortunate event sets you temporarily out of business. Any business interruption will most likely impact your revenue while at the same time you’ll probably continue to face the usual wage, rent and other business costs. Business interruption insurance can cover you for loss of gross profit or gross rentals following an interruption to your business through fire or burglary and a range of other events. Find out more about our business insurance options here. 5. Cyber insurance Cybercrime is becoming one of the leading business risks globally. The illegal release of personal information like customer or employee records, credit card details or patient information can not only affect a business financially, but it can also harm your intellectual property, client trust and reputation. In this digital age, a cyber-attack can make it difficult or impossible for a business to keep operating. In addition, if your business systems are compromised and your customers’ personal data is taken the damage could extend to being investigated by the government regulator and/or being sued by your customers. Find out more about Cyber insurance here. The information provided in this article is of a general nature only and has been prepared without considering your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. If you require advice that is tailored to your specific business or individual circumstances, please contact Resilium directly.

In this digital era, more than ever before, we are seeing a rapid increase in Cybercrime that has resulted in devastating consequences. Consider the recent Optus and Medibank cyber-attacks, which saw hundreds of thousands of people’s personal information released to the dark web as part of a sophisticated Cyber ransom. “No one is safe from these anonymous criminals sitting behind their computers and using sophisticated technology that allows them to commit a range of Cyber related crimes including extortion, theft and fraud all via the web and undetectable until it’s too late,” says Ben Hastie, Managing Director of Resilium Insurance Broking. According to the Australian Cyber Security Centre, led by the Australian Government, a cybercrime is now reported every seven minutes and costs the Australian economy up to $29 billion annually in direct costs alone! This is up 50% on the year prior, showing just how much Cyber crime is on the increase. “Businesses can no longer afford to be complacent about their Cyber safety, which is why many are seeing many adding Cyber to their overall insurance risk profile or increasing their existing Cyber insurance cover,” explains Ben. The average time it takes to resolve a Cyber breach can be anywhere between 23 days and never! That’s a minimum of 23 days that a business may be potentially frozen from conducting any operations, or worse, not being able to get access back to their business systems at all! Of those businesses that are hit with a Cyber breach, more than half of them will have to close their doors permanently within six months as a direct result. “Business owners need to consider the damaging consequences of a Cyber-attack and whether they could actually cope with the ensuing potential revenue loss, lost customers, brand damage, critical data lost and more, all the while still having to paying staff and other bills.” What are some of the most common Cyber-attacks? If a Cyber-attack is a Malware breach, it can cause damage to an entire computer network via ‘worms’ viruses or trojans… leaving the computer and the whole network inoperable as the hacker controls the system remotely. If a Cyber-attack is a Ransomware breach, this is a type of malware that encrypts a victim’s files and sees the Cyber attacker demanding a ransom to restore access – usually in payment via untraceable Cryptocurrency. Phishing is one of the oldest types of cyberattacks and it’s still one of the most destructive. It tricks email recipients into believing that the message is something important and from a real provider like a bank or a notice to update Office 365 for example. Denial of service is a type of Cyber-attack is an attempt to make an online service unavailable by overwhelming it with traffic, by compromising systems to flood sites causing the website or server to slow down or crash. Things you can do to protect yourself and be prepared for a Cyber-attack. Consider using extra security measures like multi-factor ID authentication for portable devices like laptops, iPhones and iPads. Conduct ‘safe web browsing’ – do not click on things that look legitimate. Always check the URL and whether it is from a trusted sender. Email security is vital – Do not use your personal email for work purposes, never open attachments on unfamiliar emails, do not click on any suspicious links within emails and consider the email itself as to whether the links look strange or there are spelling/grammatical errors. Password protection – Avoid common passwords which include seasons, city names, pet names, family names. Consider using full sentence passphrases with numbers or symbols (i.e., WelcomeToSharePoint2018!) Lock up important business materials – Do not leave papers, computers or other electronic devices visible in an empty car or house. Shred sensitive paper records before disposing of them – Cyber criminals have been known to go through people’s bins to find personal data and use it for Cybercrime. Cyber insurance – Talk to a Emsar Insurance Adviser about your Cyber risk profile and how you can be protected. How Emsar Insurance Can Help Prevention is the best vehicle for defense against cybercrime. Make sure you are up to speed with the latest online fraud techniques, so you don’t become a victim. Your local Emsar Insurance adviser will be able to help assess and outline the risks and vulnerabilities your organisation might face from a cybercrime perspective. Click here to find your local Emsar Insurance adviser so you can discuss appropriate insurance cover for your business. The information provided in this article is of a general nature only and has been prepared without considering your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. If you require advice that is tailored to your specific business or individual circumstances, please contact Emsar Insurance directly.

The amount of people working on and running their businesses from home has grown out of site since the global pandemic began. With this have come stories in the press identifying that some businesses operating from home have had a number of claims declined simply because they had not disclosed they were running a home business to their insurer. It’s important to know that if you’re running a business from home, do not assume that your home insurance will provide you with the coverage you will need for your business. This is because running a business from home carries risks that aren’t necessarily covered under a standard Home and Contents policy. Indeed, in most cases, many home and contents insurance policies will exclude coverage for business assets, equipment, or stock, so it’s important to seek professional insurance advice to make sure you have the right coverage for both your home and your business. What insurance do you need for running a business at home? Every business is different and accordingly has different risks and exposures, but there are some business insurances that we would generally suggest are important to have in place when running a business from home, to make sure that you and your business are covered should things go wrong. Get professional insurance advice – talk to a Resilium Adviser You can count on Resilium Insurance Advisers to treat their client’s business like it’s their very own – understanding its potential risks and designing an insurance solution specific to their client’s individual circumstances. Click here to find an insurance Adviser closest to you for professional insurance advice. The information provided in this article is of a general nature only and has been prepared without taking into account your individual objectives, financial situation or needs. If you require advice that is tailored to your specific business or individual circumstances, please contact Resilium Insurance Broking or one of our Authorised Representatives around Australia.