Posted By srd
I have a full time H&S position, but would also like to take on a little part time H&S work for other companies (PS this in not an advert, I am not looking for work).

Can anyone give me a ball park figure based on their own experiences on what I can expect to pay for public liability insurance as a health and safety consultant working part-time and dealing mainly with office based / sales companies?

I'd like to find out what others are paying so that I can see if any quotes that I will shortly obtain are competitive (but also to see whether the cost of PL insurance will cancel out any earnings from the part-time work)

Steve.

Posted By Dave Merchant
Do you mean PL, or PI?

Public liability covers accidents to others while on your business property (such as someone slipping down your stairs) and often extends to damage you cause to the property of others. If you don't have 'business premises' then the core of PL is irrelevant, and a more tailored 'general liability' policy would be more appropriate.

Professional Indemnity (PI) covers the advice you provide to clients - for example paying out if your advice was wrong and caused a client to lose money and sue you. As a consultant 'working from home', PI is IMO more important than PL in terms of the probability it'll be drawn on. You can get combined PI/PL, but the off-the-shelf policies are usually written for other professions (doctors, lawyers etc.) and normally need a lot of bashing about to fit a more 'abstract' H&S role.

Posted By Sheila EJ Keogh
srd,
your premium will depend on your expected turnover and the field in which you're operating - higher risks = higher premium. your best bet is to get the quotes from different PI insurers and compare the terms and the amounts.

Sheila

Posted By DavidW
Prices vary considerably but beware very cheap deals. When I first started out I didn't realise that some of the PI policies avialable on the internet had an aggregate limit eg if you paid for £1M worth of cover his was the total that could be claimed in any one year. So if you were very unfortunate and had 2 claims they would pay a max of £0.5M each. Maybe unlikely to happen but worth knowing about.

IOSH have a very good scheme for members.