Public liability Insurance

Just wondering if it's possible to insure myself rather than individual properties for Public Liability Insurance?

I am currently paying for nearly $400 million worth of coverage which seems a bit excessive to me.

 

Thank you Wylie.

Yes.

Yes, as far as I'm aware it doesn't cover me, but you can't sue a property so I would be the one liable.

Yes, but it doesn't cover fire and flood etc as far as I'm aware.

I'm not trying to remove the cover, simply meaning, as a business that hires properties, why wouldn't one public liability insurance policy cover me from being sued.

E.g. a hire service wouldn't have a public liability cover on each individual product it hires ??

 

Appreciate such an insurance broker. You may be able to get an amalgamated policy, with a combined cover with a maximum per property.
Marg

 

A business policy covers the business for claims anywhere within Australia however I've yet to see a policy which provides a variable coverage for a fixed risk.

 

Your property insurance does protect you. It provides a defence and legal support to defend a claim as land owner. Leave the issue of defending a claim to the insurer. You have $20-$40m of cover per property not $400m of cover.

Mine sent me off to speak with a large law firm. IDK $600 a hour or so plus. Two hours plus. No charge. They wrote letters and refused a claim. They said one of two outcomes - Person would go away or get the lawyers involved. They went away. Insurer also put them on notice for legal costs of the insurer if they persisted. It went away. We paid nothing.

PI cover is a trivial part of the cost of insurance since the underwriter has broad risks - eg it insures 200,000 properties and expects a claim rate of $X per 1,000 policies pa.

 

Who said anything about defending a claim?

I actually do have $400M of cover across 20 properties and it is this that caused me to ask if I could get a public liability insurance to cover me as the owner rather than paying 20 times the premium.

Thanks.

 

Public liability cover protects you against claims by other people. Not yourself. For that you would need some sort of personal accident cover.
Marg

 

Flip this around -

The insurance is about covering the public liability for 20 properties.

You could well ask for a policy to cover you for $20M liability but it would take into account you have the risk associated with 20 properties. That would be more expensive than someone who had one property and 1/20 the risk exposure.

Think more about risk rather than limits.

 

Yes I understand this thanks.

I will talk to the insurer next week and see what they say.

Thanks to all who replied.

 

This is an interesting topic.
I have always wondered: is there a public liability insurance that can cover me & my family in instances like:

- my child hurts another child at the playground
- I am at the food court walking back to my table with my boiling hot bowl of soup when I trip and fall on someone
- I am playing soccer at the park with my child when a bad shot makes the ball rall on the road creating an accident

All of these did not happen at my property or while driving my car.

Can I get some cover for these unexpected events that can cause injury to others?

 

In a couple of these examples Ouga mentions I believe the injured person's health and/or income protection insurance would cover the issue - or if not insured for medical, the public system would be used.

I guess you could still be sued for negligence and resulting harm if it was considered you hadn't taken reasonable care.

If you tripped because of a fault at the food court, it may come under their insurance depending on whether you contributed to the accident.

I'll be interested to hear what the legally qualified members say about this query.

 

Home insurance provides some coverage in this space outside of the home. For example coverage if you hit and damage a car whilst on your bicycle. It would appear to cover some/all of the scenarios.

The classic example is if you hit someone with a golf ball....

 

PL insurance is specific to a property NOT the aggregate ownership of the owner/s. Someone with multiple polices does NOT have $400m of cover. They have $20m of cover many times over. The most that an insurer would pay is $20m for an event. Assuming 20 events occur at once is incorrect.

You can ask the underwriter but I expect they will refuse to write a blanket policy. Thats how they make money and reduce their risk. $20m PER property knowing that say .01% of properties annually have a claim for a average of $XXXX per claim. They wont pass on their profit margin for enhanced risk of 20 times the risk for a single premium (unless the premium was 20 x the size)

The other issue of concern may be that if a event occurred today for say $20m that the policy would cancel. So tomorrows event may be uninsured. Major claims always end the policy.

 

Few bikes are covered as portable items unless expressly added as portable items and most standard policies exclude cover for a bike or sporting gear as portable items anyway IF they are in use at the time. It basically limits their loss to theft, malicious damage etc.

 

That reference was to liability when using you bike not the bike itself (different question).

e.g. (extract from NRMA PDS)

You unintentionally crash into a parked car while riding your bicycle. The damage to the car is estimated at $1,400. We or a court decide that you are liable to pay $1,400 for the claim made against you by the car owner.
How we settle your claim We pay $1,400 to the person who owns the damaged car.

 

I always tell people to first forget about what other people may or may not have in terms of insurance. Its an issue between them and their insurer.

It doesn't change your legal rights or liabilities between you and another party. You will be either legally liable to that party, or not.

 

It seems it comes down to "what is a property"?

Owner corporations often carry the building insurance of separately titled houses on one "block" and also one amount of public liability insurance covering multiple owners on that block.

I.e. there is one policy covering several owners.

I don't see why I can't do the same if I owned all of them on the same block, there wouldn't be an owners corporation as there is only one owner for all houses on that block.

Don't know for sure yet, still working on it.

 

I don't think it comes down to that at all.

You have multiple properties, and multiple policies.

As people have mentioned, the risk comes from the properties, so there's not point bundling it up all into one policy. If you want some sort of discount, then go with the same insurer and negotiate it with your purchasing power.

Otherwise you just seem to be arguing for a change to the entire system for a problem that probably only applies to you, and might not be a problem at all.