Liability insurance cover provided

When the cause of the incident has been established and the costs of rectification finalized, these will be compared with the insurance cover provided by the policy and the extent of the insurer s liability, if any, determined. The policy will normally be one of indemnity, i.e. returning the insured to the same position after an accident as he was before. This may be achieved by repairing or replacing what is damaged or by paying the amount of the damage. It may be necessary to carry out modifications to prevent a recurrence of the accident or desirable to up-rate the specification for better performance or the life of the machine may have been extended by the repairs carried out. In this case a degree of betterment is involved which will be reflected in the settlement by a contribution by the insured to the cost of repairs. 

The following provides a general summary of the cover provided by standard liability insurance policies. 

The Sponsor will take out appropriate insurance cover or will provide evidence to the satisfaction of the NHS Trust of self-insurance in respect of its potential liability under clauses 5.1 and... 

All chemical companies that may provide assistance or advice in case of distribution incidents should confirm with their insurance companies that their policies do cover potential claims arising from such service for their own products. Those eompanies that may be involved in giving assistance or advice with respect to products other than their own should notify their insurance companies specifically of this fact and obtain confirmation that their general public liability policy will provide coverage for these activities. This should not lead to increases in insurance premiums. 

Where the qualified volunteer negligently operates a motor vehicle, eiircraft, boat or other powered mode of conveyance. If the actionable conduct of the quedified volunteer is covered by a policy of liability insurance, whose liability for ordinary negligence shall be limited to the amount of the coverage provided... 

As with most insurance policies, there are exclusions—actions and activities that are not covered by liability insurance. Examples are the failure of the insured to complete services on time, intentional fraudulent and other acts of the insured, and the insured providing services outside the organization s area of expertise. As is also the case with some other forms of insurance, professional liability insurance typically has deductible provisions—an initial amount of loss that is not covered by the insurance (Bockrath and Plotnick 2011). 

Mutual companies made up the third syndicate. The Mutual Atomic Energy Insurance Pool differed from the other two. Its members covered both third-party liability and physical damage, separately or combined, in a net amount retained directly by each participating insurance company. This pool hoped to provide from eleven to fifteen million dollars of insurance for each atomic facility. Thus the level of private-property and liability insurance available for each installation totaled approximately sixty to sixty-five million dollars. This represented an unprecedented undertaking by the insurance companies the largest amount made available to other American industries had never exceeded fifteen million."... 

A possible consequence of unscrupulous myopic behavior is that railroads may use the cover of bankruptcy protection to avoid paying compensation to injured employees, customers and bystanders. A possible solution to this problem is to ensure that railroads have enough assets to provide for such payment or hold liability insurance. Insurance companies pool risk across various railroads and the other kinds of risks that they insure against, and therefore can pay out even if one of their clients is forced in bankruptcy. 

It should be noted that very few standard product liability policies provide cover for liability for the costs of repairing or replacing defective products or those, which fail to perform as intended, nor for the costs of any necessary product recall. The insurer s liability in any one period of insurance for injury or damage caused by products during that period shall not exceed the selected limit of indemnity. 

Union Carbide had always insisted that the moped and the car were Kordesch s private projects, with the company providing support only. The reason for this was a fear of liability. Kordesch said when he went to New York to demonstrate the moped on Manhattan s sidewalks he had to take out insurance totaling 2 million for 2 days to cover possible injuries and accidents. Fortunately, nothing ever happened. 

Costs to clean up the insured s own sites are not normally available from the traditional insurance market. It is not a claim that would be considered under a current public liability policy and if the contamination was known about, and also very severe then the site is unlikely to obtain site-specific environmental insurance to cover the required clean-up costs. The only situation where there may be a glimmer of hope from an insurance perspective is in situations where those facing liability for clean-up were tenants on the land and not the landowners themselves. It was, and still is, relatively common practice for tenants to have their public liability policies extended to provide indemnity to them for any damage they caused to the freeholder s land or property. If such a policy extension were to be available on an old occurrence worded policy held by a tenant the property damage part of the cover may provide them with some opportunity to gain an amount of insurance indemnity for any requirement placed upon them to clean up their landlord s land. 

Where consultants are involved in providing contracting services as well as consulting services, they must ensure that they have an adequate degree of insurance to cover both aspects of their work. Although not common, it is possible to obtain tailor-made policies that encompass the indemnification provisions of both a professional indemnity policy and a public liability policy providing the necessary degree of cover for pollution related claims. 

Public liability policies are already having their scope reduced so there is no intended cover for gradual pollution damage and very real possibilities that their scope will be further reduced in the near future to remove cover for all forms of pollution related damage. UK industry should be aware of this restriction and companies should consider whether or not their existing portfolio of insurance provides adequate protection. 

In the past, in contrast to the Public Liability policy, it was not usual to impose a limit of indemnity to the Employer s Liability policy. However, as from 1 January 1995 insurers have imposed a cap of 10 m per incident (a lower limit is usually provided for offshore risks). The Employer s Liability policy usually includes cover for all costs and expenses incurred with the insurance companies consent and extends to include the cost of representation of the Insured at proceedings in a Court of Summary Jurisdiction arising out of an alleged breach of statutory duty resulting in bodily injury or disease which may be the subject of indemnity under the policy. 

Direct costs, sometimes referred to as insured costs, are largely concerned with an organisation s liabilities as an employer and occupier of premises. Direct costs are covered by premiums paid to an insurance company to provide cover against claims made by an injured party. Premiums paid are determined, to some extent, by the claims history of the organisation and the risks involved in the business activities. 

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