BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT - Professional Indemnity Insurance
PI Professional Indemnity Insurance covers against claims where you have provided advice or services, in a professional capacity. A Professional Indemnity Insurance policy may cover you for areas such as libel and slander, professional neglect, malicious falsehood, passing off copyrights, breach of confidentiality, and negligent statement or actions.
Whilst a general PI policy does have a number of "exceptions" It does act as a safety net for brokers in what is becoming a more and more litigious market place. As marine professionals, yacht brokers will know the importance of protecting their liabilities arising from professional negligence and allegations of negligence. Even an unfounded or spurious claim can affect the reputation of a yacht broker within the market place and subsequent satisfactory claim handling is required to mitigate these potential losses. A Professional Indemnity policy indemnifies the yacht broker against allegations of negligence and provides an indemnity in the event of a claim arising out of the conduct of the business. Many policies are restricted to breaches of professional duty arising from negligence of the insured services but others provide a broader cover and refer to ‘any civil liability’.
- Negligent performance of your insured services. These services would typically include:
- Defective Title of Vessel (financial loss of your clients)
- Mis-description of a vessel’s particulars
- Taxation and Legal advice
- Unintentional breach of agency agreement
- Liability from dishonest acts of your employees
- Libel and slander
- Infringement of personal and intellectual property rights
- Unintentional breach of warranty or authority within the normal insured services
- Claims expenses
- Liability for misdirected claims (where a second agent may be involved and cause loss)
- Public Liability to £2,000,000 each claim
- No Claims Discount – 10% rebate of premium on every policy renewal
Other Insurances
- Public & Products Liability Suitable for Yacht Brokers and Agents with premises and Vessel Agencies. Cover for loss and/or damage to property and personal injury to third parties. Now required by all marina and boatyard insurers for visiting professionals to maintain a minimum of £2m cover.
- Employers Liability A statutory requirement for any sole trader, partnership or limited company employing personnel even on a part time and casual basis.
- Office / Contents / Tools & Equipment A comprehensive insurance catering for buildings / office contents / tools & equipment at the premises or on a worldwide basis.
- Business Interruption More relevant to yacht brokers and agents with premises, this insurance will provide both working capital to secure temporary accommodation, etc. and/or gross profit payments in relation to lost income in the event of an insured loss.
- Stock Vessels Comprehensive cover for used stock vessels / equipment including trial / demonstration use, worldwide road and sea transits.
- 24 Hour Personal Accident & Illness A policy designed to provide a weekly income to members and their employees prevented from working due to accident or illness. The policy also provides lump sum payments for permanent and/or temporary injury, and death.
- Travel Insurance An annual or single trip policy for members regularly travelling abroad. Policies can be extended to include spouse and dependant children if travelling with assureds. Holiday trips are automatically covered.
Insure against...
- Protect a broker from legal action following "advice given", either written or spoken, by a broker. Whilst Boatshed systems, training and information is designed to avoid any such situation.
- Brokers Comments are an area where they could be liable as all the other boat spec has been obtained and confirmed by the Vendor. If the broker writes "Go any where boat" and they take the boat into the Southern Ocean and sink, you will be liable. With the Boatshed Brokers Comments training I wouldn't expect comments like that to be made in the Brokers comments area. Be aware.
- PI a contractual part of the Boatshed Franchise agreement.
- Under the terms of your listing agreement your vendor is responsible for insurance during viewings....see you listing agreement section 7.
- Any ferry or water Taxi is legally obliged to carry passengers insurance.
- Any brokerage launch has to carry a special insurance extension for undertaking viewings and this requires a certain level of experience for the crew.
Contacts for PI (Public Indemnity & Public Liability) World-wide
Website - www.everardinsurance.co.uk Tel: 01732 22 46 80 Fax: 01732 87 33 93