The word ‘accident’ has a specific meaning when it comes to business insurance policies covering ‘accidental injury’ or ‘accidental damage’. Primarily, it means that such policies cover events that are not deliberately caused by the policyholder and that are not inevitable. Deliberately driving your car into a wall is not...
An actuary is a specialist in the mathematics of risk: they apply mathematical theories of probabilities and statistical techniques to calculate risks and insurance premiums. Previously seen only in relation to life assurance, we now know we need general insurance actuaries, particularly in relation to loss reserving and premium calculations.
Do you know exactly what your payroll, turnover or average stock value on your premises will be in the next 12 months? Probably not. But what happens if your business insurance premiums are to be based on these figures? Often, the premium has to be based upon realistic estimates. Under...
The change in premium as a result of a policy amendment. This could take the form of either an additional premium or a refund premium depending on the nature of the amendment.
Someone who sells and services business insurance policies on behalf of commercial insurance companies. In many countries agents can only represent either one or a limited number of commercial insurance companies as opposed to brokers who are free to work with as many as they like.
An ‘Aggregate’ limit of indemnity is found on a Professional Indemnity policy and it means that the policy will only cover the cost of claims up to the cover limit you have selected. Each claim you have in the year effectively reduces the amount of cover you have left in...
Legal costs, including the costs of legal investigation and defence, loss adjusters, experts, court costs and claims settlement are normally covered by Professional Indemnity policies. Some PI policies include the payment of these costs within the cover limit of the policy (known as the ‘limit of indemnity’), in which case...
This is a type of business insurance policy which provides a very broad level of cover. Nevertheless an All Risks policy will still contain some exclusions depending on the risk, but nowhere near as many as the more common Specified Perils business insurance policy. All Risks business insurance policies tend...
An amendment is any change made to a business insurance policy such as change of address, an increase or decrease to the level of cover, a greater or lesser number of employees or any other change in circumstances which could affect a policy.
An ‘Any One Claim’ limit of indemnity is found on a Professional Indemnity policy and it means that the cover limit you select is applied to every claim that happens during the policy year. So, if you select £1m of cover and have three claims in the year for £900,000...