Filing a Business Liability Claim

One of the pitfalls you will always want to avoid is waiting too long to file a liability claim with your commercial insurance company.

Liability claims typically move quite slowly. Generally speaking, the time between the initial claim or complaint being filed and the end of the court proceedings frequently takes months, and it is not rare for it to take more than a year.

Because we are human, business owners will often ignore the whole thing and hope it will go away. Or they may retain an attorney to offer them advice as to how to make it go away. Or they may wait until months after the problem before they notify their commercial insurance agent or company.

Any one of these actions — or inactions — can ruin your coverage of the liability claim, whether the original incident is covered under the liability claim.

If you read your business liability policy, it is very likely that it states that the  policyholder must notify the insurance company if a situation which could result in a claim has occurred. The reason for this is that when you notify your insurance company immediately, they have time to investigate the incident as well as to prepare a defense if that is necessary.

When the business owner waits too long, the company may deny the business liability claim because of the lack of proper notice.

As a matter of course, you should have a lawyer with whom you work with issues which affect your business. It is possible to have your commercial insurance company compensate your attorney, but you must start the claims process early and not later.

Regarding your business liability claim, your insurance company and the policy will spell out the litigation process and the course of defense.

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Make sure that you understand your present liability coverage and check with your licensed insurance professional to make sure it’s what you need.