Entering the topic of insurance is always complicated and every situation related to it is never easy to solve. Things get even more difficult to process when people start talking about all the different types of insurance. Who knows the differences between public liability and general liability insurance? To learn more about this topic, we will need to delve a little bit deeper to help you truly understand those differences. This is not something that a business owner can just sift through. It requires continuous attention to truly learn.
However, once you start to get to know these two different terms and what they actually aim to cover, you will easily start to understand what they mean and which one will be more beneficial to your business.
Protecting your business from potential accidents or customer injuries is vital for success, especially in these modern times. If there ever is some kind of accident in the future, you will definitely want to be covered either by public or general liability insurance.
Make sure you read this entire article to find out the disadvantages and advantages of both of these two different insurance types.
Public liability insurance
Before we start talking about the main differences between these two terms, we need to establish what exactly they mean. So, let us talk about one of them.
This one will cover and protect your business in the event of a customer or some other third-party gets injured while in your office, storage unit, or other business premises. The injury might be a result of a slip on a wet floor, tripping over trash on the ground, getting stuck on a cable, or any other similar accident. The reality is, anything like this can happen at any time.
Sometimes, people can be really clumsy, but when things like this happen on the property of a certain company, the accident is a fault of the company by default. So, how can you battle against this type of claim? When the law claims that your business is at fault here, how can you prove them wrong? Can you even avoid accidents like this from ever happening?
Well, unfortunately, no. There is no way to avoid this kind of thing from ever happening. The only way to prevent such accidents is by closing your offices or premises from the public. Of course, this is not the solution because it may have a serious impact on your profits, especially if your company holds a store or a retail shop.
However, with the help of public liability insurance, business owners can finally rest assured that they are safe from such accidents. Keep in mind, you will not be 100% safe because there are some occasions where you are truly at fault and it is not a mistake from the client. Other such circumstances, you will not be covered by insurance and you probably have to compensate the customer or maybe even go to court. But, that is another topic that is for another article.
It does not cover employees
The biggest downside to public liability insurance has to be the fact that it does not cover any kind of accident that is related to your employees. This is only tied to public claims, or in other words, customers. So, if you want to protect your company from every possible angle, you will have to consider getting a different type of insurance to ensure that you cover both the customers, yourself, and your employees. This is where GLI can help.
General liability insurance
GLI offers much broader security to your company, protecting you from all kinds of different claims for accidents. As a business owner, you will have a cover over every injury that happens on your property or because of a certain product or service that you offered to the public. For example, GLI will be able to medically cover an injury or an accident that has happened on your premises. If there is a need for such a claim to be taken to court, GLI will also take care of the attorney fees.
As you can see, the main difference between PLI and GLI is the fact that one of them offers protection against many other types of incidents. It is not just about protecting your business from clients that are on your premises.
However, this does not mean that GLI is the perfect option for every company. You have to keep in mind that this is the more expensive option because it provides you with more benefits and features. Personally, I believe that a company should invest in both of these different insurance offers for the most protection.
Although, not every company has the budget to invest in both GLI or PLI. In this case, you will have to do a bit of research so you can make the right decision between the two. The best way to do that is to compare the benefits, advantages, and disadvantages of these two insurance options which you can easily do on this website. See which one of these will satisfy the needs and requirements of your business.
Settle for both
If you believe that your company will be exposed to such injuries or accidents frequently in the future, your best option would be to both get GLI and PLI. This might be the best option and will protect you against all kinds of different incidents. Keep in mind, you will have to dedicate a lot of money from your budget for this. But, even if it is expensive, it will not be nearly as expensive as having to pay for a worker’s compensation or an injury claim from a certain client. An injury claim may cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars while insurance can be just a couple of thousand dollars.
It is up to you to decide whether such an investment is worth it.
As you can see, both of these offers are quite similar, but there are still some important differences. After this article, I am sure you will understand what those differences are.