Running an office with lots of equipment and staff means there are many variables when it comes to office insurance.
Approximately half of all insurance claims made on commercial buildings are a result of water damage*, but there are a number of other common claims made on office insurance policies which are detailed below.
- Employers’ liability insurance
Figures from the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) for 2009-2010 show there were over 3,500 injuries suffered by people in administrative & secretarial roles alone.**
Office insurance claims can arise from a wide variety of accidents. Things like being electrocuted when using computers or other devices, tripping over loose wires and chairs collapsing due to poor maintenance are all fairly common.
These types of accident don’t always lead to office insurance claims, for example where the employee only suffered a minor sprain and doesn’t want to take things any further.
- Contractual disputes & debt recovery
If you’ve run a business for any length of time, you’ll be all too aware that not everyone pays their bills. Many office insurance policies have cover that allows you to claim for the cost of commercial debt recovery.
You may also have to go to court over a contractual dispute with one of your suppliers. Without office insurance in place, you may not be able to afford to take this legal action at all, so it’s worthwhile making sure you have a policy that includes it.
- Public liability claims
As well as employees and suppliers, your office policy may need public liability insurance cover for any visitors too. For example, you might have customers who drop off paperwork regularly at your office.
If they were to come to any harm through no fault of their own while in your car park or inside your building, they might have a legitimate case for a compensation claim.
Simple things like not clearing ice from your car park have the potential to cause injury and this could end up being severe, causing your client to take months off work without any pay.
Summary
While the statistics suggest that serious injuries and deaths aren’t likely in an office environment, no business can afford to take the risk of not having office insurance in place.
The same applies to debt recovery, would you be happy to spend even more money chasing a high value debt with no guarantee of ever getting back what you were owed?
*source: http://www.postonline.co.uk/post/news/2112359/water-damage-creating-costly-commerical-property-claims
**source: http://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/occupation.htm (first downloadable report on this page)
Author Bio: The Co-operative Insurance provides office insurance policies which include public liability insurance cover.
