Many building sites have a vast array of high value items of plant and equipment that are very theft attractive. Current estimates place the value of plant theft alone at £ 1 million each week. Historically manufacturers have not fitted security devices to construction equipment( plant). It is therefore common to find a £ 60,000 excavator , without any form of reliable security, being left overnight on an open contract site. Equally, a significant amount of driven plant is not road registered and often manufacturer markings are either difficult to find or easy to remove, This makes it very easy to steal high value items of driven plant and the lack of proper identification means that Poiice have little chance of accurately identifying rightful ownership should they suspect an item has been stolen. 24 hours after a theft has taken place most stolen plant is in a container ready to be taken outside the country.

Here are a few simple measure to make the lives of would be criminals more difficult
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The Assigned Risk Pool (ARP) is essentially a safe haven for solicitors who have not been able to obtain Professional Indemnity Insurance in the open market. In October 2011 the amount of time that a firm can remain in the ARP was reduced from 12 to 6 months and from October 2012, the ARP will be funded jointly by insurers and solicitors, with liability for claims arising from firms who have not taken out insurance moving from the ARP to the Compensation Fund. The ARP will be replaced in October 2013 with a system where insurers offer a 3 month extended policy to firms who cannot obtain Professional Indemnity for the following year to allow them extra time to find an alternative insurer.

A new report by the Insurance Industry has shown that nearly one third of UK small businesses have admitted that they only purchase the minimum amount of insurance cover required, whether that’s for property or transport or is a compulsory form of insurance such as Employer’s Liability Insurance. Only 21 % had Professional Indemnity cover in place. This stresses the importance of using a broker to advise an SME on the appropriate covers and to help out with Risk Management advice.

There has been a recent landmark judgement handed down on 28 March 2012 in that the supreme court has allowed the appeals of Zurich Insurance Plc, Employers and victims on the meaning of certain Employers Liability Insurance policies in relation to their application to Mesothelioma claims. The supreme court also dismissed the appeals of Excess, Independent, Municipal Mutual Insurance and Builders Accident Insurance, who were contending that their policies responded to such claims only if the date when the Tumour became established in the body was during the period of insurance and did not respond if the exposure to Asbestos occurred during the period of the policy.

If you are in the business of selling your knowledge or skills you may want to consider taking out Professional Indemnity Insurance, as this can protect your business against claims for loss or damage made by a client or a third party if you make a mistake or are found to have been negligent in some or all of the services that you provide. Professional Indemnity Insurance also covers legal costs involved in defending a claim.

Many professionals  are required to have Professional Indemnity insurance cover to satisfy the requirement of their Professional Trade Body. This includes, Insurance Brokers, designers, architects, accountants and solicitors.
An important aspect to consider when purchasing Professional Indemnity Insurance is that the cover is usually on a claims made basis, meaning that the policy will only cover claims that are made when he policy is ‘live’. Therefore if you plan to cancel your policy when you close your business or retire then you may need to arrange ‘Run off’ cover for a period of time afterwards.

Professional Indemnity Insurance can be called by different names depending on the profession involved. This is often referred to as Medical Malpractice Insurance when linked to the medical profession.  It is often known as Errors and Omissions insurance when we talk about negligence involving  Consultants, Brokers and Lawyers.

Professional Indemnity Insurance is purchased by a wide range of professionals ranging from the Accounting and Financial Services professions through to the Construction professions where the scope of work could involve Design and Build.
Common claims that Professional Indemnity Insurance covers are Negligence, misrepresentation, violation of good faith, fair dealing and inaccurate advice.

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If you have members of the public or clients coming to your premises, or you go theirs, then you should consider taking out Public Liability Insurance.
Public Liability Insurance will cover you for any awards of damage given to a member of the public because of an injury or damage to their property caused by you or your business. It also covers any related Legal Fees, Costs, Expenses and Hospital treatment if needed.Public Liability is not compulsory insurance but in today’s ever increasingly litigious society it is wise to consider taking out this insurance . You will also find that many of your clients and potential clients will want to see proof of adequate insurance cover before they let you work from them.

Professional Indemnity Insurance can be arranged either on an Aggregate basis or an Any One Claim basis. It is important that the difference between these 2 types of cover is understood as this could have a severe impact in the case of a large claim or if you were to incur multiple claims within and one policy period.

Aggregate Basis- with this type of cover all claims are paid out of a specified Limit of Indemnity and this reduces the amount available for subsequent claims.

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When buying a professional indemnity insurance policy it is necessary to choose the Limit of Indemnity that you consider will be necessary to cover the risks faced by your business. It could also be the case that your are obliged to buy a certain levels of cover as instructed by your relevant professional body, or to satisfy the criteria set out by the Principal Contractor under a contract before you can deal with them. The Limit of Indemnity is the maximum amount of money that a Professional Indemnity policy will pay out.

Costs and Expenses in Addition- this simply means that any costs and expenses incurred in investigating or representing you in defending the claim would be paid in addition to the amount of damages awarded to the third party, and further that the costs and expenses would not count towards the limit of indemnity

We have a number of clients who take out Professional Indemnity Insurance to fulful the terms and conditions of a contract and then at renewal of the policy try and cancel the cover because the contract has finished.

At this stage we always advise our clients to keep the policy in force. Professional Indemnity Insurance is there to cover all the past work that has been done for your clients. The basis of the cover is that of a ‘Claims Made’ policy.. In other words the policy that is in force at the time of the claim is the policy that will deal with the claim. If the cover has been allowed to lapse then basically the claim will not be covered and any client will have to deal with the claim out of their own pocket. A lot of these negligence type claims tend to be very complicated and also involve large legal fees in defending the claim. Without the appropriate Professional Indemnity Insurance still in place, it is more than likely that a small firm would be put out of business defending the claim.