Posted by When we contract, our employers ask us to take out insurance – these are normally Professional Indemnity Insurance (PI) and Public Liability Insurance.
But how can we tell if the policy we are buying is any good? Will it cover us when something goes wrong and we need to claim?
Our June IT Contractors Meetup covered off these important topics with expert speaker Kirsty Young from i2iBrokers.
Kirsty’s key message
You can negotiate the contracts you’ve been given.
Do not buy into the “well everyone else has signed it” defence. Chances are they’ve not read it, their insurance broker has no knowledge of the contract and they could be in for a nasty surprise at claim time.
Contracts are just the guidelines and in some cases big companies rely on the fact that independent contractors don’t have the time or money to challenge their contracts. That’s why they bestow as much exposure as they can back to you.
Get a Discount on Insurance by joining Resourcefully. When you join you can access our “Privileges Page” and find Kirsty’s discount coupon.
A Rapid Primer on Insurance for Contractors
Kirsty covers off these topics
What is Technology Liability?
- Different sections
- Insuring clauses
- Claims made and occurrence
- Why two policies / sections?
Why you need insurance
- Contracts require insurance
- Reliance as a professional / expert
- What can trigger a claim
- Legal costs and expenses
The four Pillars of choosing a technology liability policy
- Cost (does not equal quality)
- Excess
- Reinstatements
- Territory and Jurisdictional Limits
Agency Arranged Policies
- Pors
- Cons
Key Contract Clauses to look out for
- Insurance clauses – the dangers of the words “not less than” or “minimum” and “appropriate
- Indemnity Clause – Contract Clause versus typicql policy coverage. Direct financia loss only. Consequential loss excluded and why
- Assignment of rights
- Contributory negligence
- Limitation of Liability clause – if there isn’t one… what to do.
- You maximum exposure – the limit of liability and the danger of using the minimum limit in the insurance clause versus the maximum limit in the LOL clause
- The uninsured part of the claim and the allocation of defence costs
- Secondary claim for Breach of contract
Governing law