“There Is No Better Time Than Now To Acquire EPLI Coverage”

With the economy rolling right along this past few years, there has been a significant increase in new hires by companies over all the country, which is always good news. The other side of that coin is that by these companies by increasing their work force, increases the likelihood that one of these employees will file an EPLI claim, which is why it is so important that your company’s insurance plans include an Employment Practices Liability Insurance policy.

When discussing this type of coverage and explaining that having Employment Practices Liability Insurance coverage can protect their company’s interests, clients and prospects many times seem to have a difficult time in seeing its value.Employment Practices Liability Insurance, or EPLI around California for short is professional liability insurance that covers certain employment related claims made by employees. Too often company owners see this type of coverage as an unwanted expense and not particularly important to protecting their a ssets and company. Nothing could be further from the truth considering the vast amount of moneys that is paid out each from EPLI claims.

With today’s work environment as litigious as it is, acquiring an Employment Practices Liability Insurance policy is extremely important if your employees are not only interacting with one another, but with the public in general. Having this type of insurance coverage can protect your business from potential meritless claims brought by disgruntled employees and former employees.

As a company, we understand your employment policies are as fair and non-discriminatory as humanly possible, but with such things as age and gender gaps, many times old habits are hard to break, which could lead to miscommunications and having an ELPI Policy can serve as a first and last line of defense against potential employment claims. Generally speaking, Employment Practices Liability Insurance can cover such things as hostile work environment, emotional distress, workplace harassment, or wrongful termination of an employee.

When the discussion starts about why a company should add this type of coverage to their insurance program, an excellent example to use would be if one of the company’s managers harasses, discriminates or wrongly terminates the employee, if this happens, you almost always know that a claim or lawsuit will be on its way to you. Also, another example would be if your employee who in the field harasses a client, whether that the employee made a bad comment to the client or in a worst case scenario, sexually harassed one of your clients.

In the past few years, lawsuits filed by employees against their employers across all fifty states have been on the rise and by all accounts will only increase in the coming years, which is why companies would be wise to have the proper amount of Employment Practices Liability Insurance Coverage. Determining what the annual premium may be for Employment Practices Liability Insurance Coverage will depend on numerous factors such as what type of business your company does, the number of employees it has, and other risk factors and equally important if your company has been involved in a lawsuit over employment practices in the past. If your previous insurance history shows no claims, it may be a major factor in keeping your premium down.

Typically, Employment Practices Liability Insurance policies will reimburse your company against the costs of defending a lawsuit in court and for judgments and settlements, depending on state law allows. The EPLI policy can also cover legal costs whether your company wins or loses the lawsuit that was filed against it. Please be aware that that EPLI policies usually do not pay for punitive damages (unless allowable by law) or civil or criminal fines. Other liabilities covered by other insurance policies, such as workers compensation, are excluded from EPLI policies.

As we are discussing the merits of Employment Practices Liability Insurance, recently I came upon an interesting article in one of our insurance industry magazines. In this article, an employee was in the process of filing a complaint of harassment, the employee did follow the chain of command, reporting the complaint to their immediate supervisor, then proceeded to follow up with the director of the company’s Human Resources department and finally with a senior member of upper management which is the proper set of procedures for this company.

What really hit at me about this article as it was reported, that this employee followed all the proper procedures in requesting this complaint of harassment be investigated, but the company did absolutely no follow up on this complaint. Because of the company’s failure to respond to these complaints, the employee has hired a top-notch EPLI attorney and I assume that will probably not end well for the company’s bottom line. Instead of working with the employee on this complaint and potentially heading off a massive EPLI claim and legal battle, more than likely it is heading to court to be decided. As most people can deduce, it is always wiser to investigate the complaint in a timely matter versus dismissing or ignoring the complaint until it becomes a claim and lawsuit and ends up costing the company money thousands of dollars.

At PJO Insurance Brokerage, our brokers have access to various Employment Practices Liability Insurance carriers who will have the proper coverage for your company’s employment situation. We look forward to working with your company in the near future.

Written By:

PJO Insurance Brokerage – Patrick O’ Neill

9850 S Maryland Parkway Suite A-5-262
Las Vegas, NV 89183

Office: 702-370-4799 / 877-234-5759
Fax: 877-378-8292
Email: Patrick@PJOBrokerage.com
Website: https://pjobrokerage.com/nevada