Glossary

Business Interruption

Imagine if you were forced to close your business for a week, a month, or even a year due to damage. What impact would that have? How would you cover costs such as staff payments and lost business income while you were unable to trade?

This is where sufficient Business Interruption cover is vital in providing you with cover for ongoing business expenses, increased cost of working and loss of income due to disruptions to your pharmacy caused by insured damage.

If you are underinsured for Business Interruption cover you could be left to pay ongoing out-of-pocket expenses for disruptions to your business, which can quickly add up.

Claims Made

Most of our liabilities insurance policies work on a claims made basis meaning that cover is provided according to the date a claim is made rather than when the incident occurred.

Along with our retroactive cover, this means that you have current cover for claims resulting from past practice, which you aren’t yet aware of. An important aspect of a claims made insurance policy is that incidents must be reported once they become known.

Combined Liabilities

In most cases Guild provides a combined liabilities cover to offer peace of mind. For the insured, products liability, public liability and professional indemnity are all covered under the one policy.

Full Replacement Cost

While every effort can be made to determine your ‘sums insured’ and set “limits” correctly, rising building costs and other factors often cause the value of your building and contents to increase. Limiting your insurance cover to a set figure leaves you at risk of underinsurance. 

Guild Insurance is the one of the few insurers providing full Replacement Cost cover, which means we fully replace your building and contents. 

Additionally, other insurance policies often contain ‘underinsurance’ or average’ provisions, which mean that even for partial damage to your business, the insurer can assess the total value of your business and if they find that you are underinsured, they can reduce your final payout. Guild on the other hand will always pay you out to the replacement cost of the damages.

Inquiries and Proceedings cover

Inquiries and Proceedings cover covers you for legal costs and expenses associated with a disciplinary or coronial investigation, hearing or inquiry. 

This cover gives you access to legal representation and assistance for board inquiries and other disciplinary matters. You also receive support preparing a response to a complaint or for an informal hearing.

Legal Support

Clients with Guild Insurance faced with legal claims will be ably supported by the experienced litigation law team at Meridian Lawyers. 

Meridian are a member of the same parent company, the Guild Group, this gives Guild Insurance confidence that they will uphold the same values of strong service ethic and support to our clients. 

Guild Insurance clients can receive immediate and ongoing advice on how best to handle claims or potential claim situations.

Public Sector Practitioners

Working in the public sector you need to decide whether or not to take out your own liabilities insurance.

One good reason for taking out your own cover is that litigation can potentially be directed against both employee and employer, either separately or jointly. In such cases an employee may not be sufficiently protected against the liability exposure of a negligence claim without their own liabilities insurance. The costs can be significant whether or not they are found liable.

In the event of a claim arising from an incident involving treatment of a patient, the employer and the employee can often have differing interests. With your own cover you can be sure that your own interests are defended.

Guild can cover you for claims arising in all of the places where you work, and also provides cover outside of the hospital environment. This may include working in private practice on weekends or assisting at sporting events.

Renewal

For some of the Liabilities schemes, you will have a common renewal date. A common renewal date enables Guild Insurance to have an independent actuarial review conducted on an annual basis, to ensure that our premiums are in line with claims figures. When your insurance policy is due for renewal we’ll be in contact with you in the weeks prior. If you haven’t heard from us and you think you should have, give us a call.

Report An Incident

In the course of your professional practice, you may have to make decisions on whether or not to report incidents that lead to a potential claim. If you are even considering “should I report this incident?”, then we recommend a strategy of ‘better to report than not’.

There’s no harm done when you notify Guild of an incident. You will not incur penalties but rather give yourself the best chance to obtain the best outcome for all parties. Reporting an incident merely means that we have a record, in the case that a claim might eventuate.

Reporting incidents:

• allows effective investigation to take place to help to avert a more serious claim, or defend a claim if received, and
• is also a requirement under your insurance policy for those incidents that the insured feels may give rise to a claim.

Another important reason to report incidents immediately is that Guild Insurance offers direct access to a legal firm whose experience in these matters positions them ideally to provide advice on how to deal with potential claims.

Risk Management Committee

In a number of allied health professions, Guild works with association peak bodies to convene regular Risk Management Committee meetings. The Risk Management Committee examines claims and complaints made, to identify risk exposures and communicate these risks to the profession.

The Committees are generally comprised of practitioners with expertise in various fields of practice, association representatives, and Guild’s risk management specialists, underwriting and lawyers.

Sums Insured

Value, the ‘sums insured’ or ‘limit of liability’, for building and contents.

In the case of Professional Indemnity, Home & Contents and Car Insurance, these sums insured are selected upon application (refer to insurance Features & Benefits for details), but in the case of Business Insurance a Guild Customer Service Executive can help you to assess your level of cover. 

While every effort can be made to determine your ‘sums insured’ and set ‘limits’ correctly, rising building costs and other factors often cause the value of your business to increase. Limiting your insurance cover to a set figure can therefore leave you at risk of underinsurance. 

Guild offers full replacement cost for some of its business insurance products, which provides protection against underinsurance.

Underinsurance

It is our experience that underinsurance is often an issue in major incidents and can expose businesses and homes to out-of-pocket expenses for hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Guild Insurance offers new for old replacement, including a 50% safety net over and above the sum insured for some of its business insurance products, which provides protections against underinsurance. We also provide a 20% safety net to guard against underinsurance in our Home & Contents Insurance.