Employment Practices Liability Insurance or EPL insurance is as it sounds, insurance to cover suits brought by or against employees. While coverage enhancements abound, there are two quick and simple things you can ask yourself to decide if your EPL coverage is just mediocre and in need of improvement.
First, "Who is covered?". Different EPL policies have different definitions of employee. Some will include leased workers or independent contractors. Others will not. Think of the scenario of a construction worker whistling at a woman walking down the street. If that worker is an independent contractor, hopefully the construction companies EPL policy extends the definition of employees to independent contractors. If not, they better hope the woman on the street doesn't sue them! They also better hope that they have the feature mentioned below.
Next, ask yourself "Does my EPL policy provide 3rd party coverage?". 3rd party coverage provides coverage for suits brought by a 3rd party, ie, someone that is not an employee. Here again, this is a simple enough concept however different carriers define 3rd parties in different ways. While some carriers will simply say a 3rd party is "any non-employee", others will define it as "a vendor, or customer". While that sounds like it would cover anyone that is not an employee, lets go back to our construction site scenario. The woman walking down the street would not be a vendor or customer, thus if she sued the construction firm, no coverage would be available if the 3rd party language was restrictive. If your definition read "any non-employee", well our woman walking down the street would fall into that category and thus the construction company will be covered.
Based on the two items above you can see how a seemingly simple claim scenario could be excluded in 4 different ways. Let Gaddis Company help you navigate these tricky waters.
We represent numerous competitive carriers for EPL. Many have excellent loss control programs available. Premiums start as low as $900.