Pretty much every business in the United States can be held responsible for personal injury claims made by employees or customers. They may liable for damages that come from different situations (like a slip and fall or back injuries). Even on the job injuries can be filed against a businesses. Companies that cater to the public should have some form of personal injury insurance, like workers compensation or auto accident insurance. Injured employees, although covered under workers compensation insurance, are still allowed to file an additional personal injury claims. If involved in an accident in a company vehicle’s car or while on duty, an employee can take a business to court. It is never a bad idea to be prepared and have good business insurance to cover as many situations as possible. In the event that your business is sued, you will have insurance in place so that it does not cost you as much as if you did not have insurance.
Duty of Care
By law, every business is required to have safe working conditions and non hazardous surroundings for their employees and customers. Basic responsibilities are given when you open your companies’s doors to the public, and the most efficient way to ensure this is that you maintain insurance coverage designed for specific accidents that are likely to occur. As a business, you should be sure to maintain working structures so that accidents can be avoided; this includes broken handrails, slippery stairs and wet floors. You should also provide open and easily accessible aisles for your customers as well as signs for areas that can be hazardous, like wet floors and icy parking lots. Bigger corporations experience personal injury claims on a huge scale; however, smaller operations are subject to them as well. Claims against smaller companies can be more detrimental than claims against larger companies because smaller businesses cannot always afford settlements without insurance. Although each state’s laws differ, most states use the comparative negligence law. This is the notion that not every accident is the fault of the company being sued. The individual that filed is usually asked to gauge what percentage they themselves had contributed to the accident. Often times, the amount of the settlement will be decreased or in some cases even denied if the individual filing the claim is found to be at fault.
Contact an Attorney
Every businesses, no matter the size, should adjust their insurance needs every year to insure they have the best plan possible. Incurring a single incident that is not covered by your insurance plan could mean the end of your business or do a large amount of harm to the owner of the business’s financial future. Contact a business lawyer Danbury, CT trusts if you have considering which insurance plan to purchase for your business.
Thank you to our contributors at Sweeney Legal, LLC for their knowledge about business law.