Guides
Task guides start from the job somebody is trying to finish rather than from an insurance product. Each one separates the factual steps that can be stated generally from decisions that depend on a particular business.
Certificates and evidence of cover
- How to get a certificate of currency — Ask whoever arranged the policy — your broker, or the insurer directly if you bought online. It is normally free and issued the same day.
- Checking a subcontractor’s certificate of currency — Check the insured entity name against the entity on your contract first. A name mismatch is the most common and most serious defect.
- When a certificate does not meet the contract — Identify which requirement is unmet: the insured name, the class of cover, the limit, the period, or a required notation. Each has a different fix.
Claims and disputes
- Notifying a claim: what to send and when — Notify as soon as you know something has happened, before you know whether it will become a claim. Late notification is a reason claims get declined.
- A claim was declined: the steps in order — Ask for the decision and its reasons in writing, with the specific policy term relied on. A verbal decline is not something you can respond to.
- Complaining about an insurer or broker — Complain to the firm first. Insurers and brokers must run an internal dispute resolution process, and it is free.
Who is requiring this of you
- Is it legally required, or does somebody just want it? — Three separate things get described as compulsory, and only one of them is a general legal obligation.
- Professional indemnity or public liability? — Public liability asks what the business damaged. Professional indemnity asks what the business got wrong.
- Using your own car for client work — A private motor policy is priced for the use you declared, and carrying clients or equipment for payment is a different use.
- When claims-made cover lapses, switches or ends — Claims-made cover responds to claims first made during the policy period, whatever date the work was done.
- Asked for a workers compensation certificate as a sole trader — State schemes generally cover workers, not the person who owns the business.
- Why comparing premiums with other businesses misleads — Premium is driven by the activity, the limit, the excess, the revenue and the claims history together, so two businesses in the same trade can be priced very differently.
How the market is put together
- Who actually carries the risk on your policy — The name printed largest on a certificate is frequently not the company that pays a claim.
- Can you choose your workers compensation insurer? — In several states and territories the employer has no choice: cover comes from a single government scheme or insurer.
- The covers that are sections, not policies — Several well-known covers are not sold as standalone policies at all — they are optional sections inside a broader business policy.