Author: Teamwsib

 

Deadly Weapons Insurance.

Worldwide the occurrence of malicious attacks is on the rise. Recently a man yielding a knife threatened pedestrians in Sydney CBD after murdering a lady in a nearby hotel room and prior to this an assailant was arrested after wielding a chainsaw in a Melbourne Street. Have you ever considered if your place of business could be at threat of one of these attacks, or could your business be the location for one of these attacks?

Deadly Weapons insurance has been designed to provide protection to you in the event of a Deadly Weapon incident at your premises, this being, an incident involving an individual or group of people actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people using a deadly weapon at one of your insured locations.

The policy provides three core pillars of coverage;

1.       Physical Damage including Business Interruption (Physical Damage to Insured location including demolition, clearance and memorialisation costs Gross Earnings, Ingress/Egress & Prevention of Access by Civil/Military Authorities, Loss of Attraction Extra Expense to resume operations)

2.       Crisis Management Services (pre and post event Crisis Risk Crisis Management Services including but not limited to: crisis response investigation, crisis management support, public relations, media management and site security. Including counselling Services and Funeral expenses)

3.       Third Party Liability & Defence Costs (Indemnification of monetary judgements awarded following legal liability imposed by a court of law due to the negligence of the Original Insured following a DWP event )

Cover can also extend to a wide variety of weapons, not just firearms i.e. smashed glass, explosive, knife, syringe, medical instrument.

With events of this nature being unfortunately on the rise across the world, this is becoming an increasingly important exposure to consider, as the potential threat to your organisation can be sizeable, i.e. property damage, lengthy forced closures, loss of attraction, resultant legal liability claims etc.

Please contact your Account Manager if you would like to know more about Deadly Weapons Insurance and how it can safeguard your premises against a malicious attack.

 

Are you Cyber Secure?

When was the last time you thought about the cyber security within your business? Or when did you last review your in-house mitigation policies and procedures? Have you got a cyber disaster response plan in place? What would you do if your entire IT infrastructure was compromised?

With the changes to Mandatory Data Breach Notification legislation in early 2018, and with more legislation and law amendments anticipated – there is no better time than now to assess the cyber security and mitigation procedures within your business.

WSIB’s Top Tips on Cyber Security;

1.       Regularly Back up Data

Back up data frequently and store your backups off site and off your network to mitigate the risk of these being infiltrated should your system suffer a cyber-attack.

2.       Update your Software and Install Anti-Virus Protection

Updates are often designed to strengthen cyber security so ensure these are done in a timely matter. Additionally, Anti-Virus Protection should be in place to guard against the ever-evolving threat from viruses.

3.       Segregation & Verification Procedures

Segregation procedures should be in place to ensure at least two people are involved with fund transfers, deposits, issuance of cheques, stock control, adding new vendors, or adding new employees. It is further recommended that verification procedures are carried out to authenticate requests to change supplier or customer bank account details, or where large payment requests are received via email, regardless of who they seem to have been received from.

4.       Cyber Incident Response plan

Develop a Cyber Incident Response Plan to ensure you can effectively and efficiently deal with an incident. Your Cyber Incident Response Plan should take into consideration the wide range of cyber exposures, from identifying what is a notifiable data breach to an entire system extortion threat.

5.       Cyber Insurance

Speak to your Account Broker about how Cyber Insurance can provide further protection to your business.

Contact your Account Manager should you wish to talk about your Business and Cyber Security further.

 

Caution with Hire Vehicles – A precedential decision has been set.

A recent appeal from the NSW Local Magistrates Court to the NSW Supreme Court modifies how claims are assessed for drivers who hire vehicles after a car accident where they may seek recovery.

The Supreme Court ruling, cited as Nguyen v Cassim [2019] NSWSC 1130 considered the assessment of damages (amount recoverable) where a motor vehicle, damaged in a collision for which the owner was not at fault, is unavailable for use while repairs are effected and substitute vehicle is hired.  In essence two key questions arose:

1. Where the damaged vehicle is a high value or “prestige”, is the expense of obtaining a replacement car of similar value or prestige recoverable, where a cheaper alternative would overcome the inconvenience arising from the temporary unavailability of the damaged vehicle?
2. The second question only arises once it is accepted that the expense of obtaining a replacement vehicle of similar value or prestige is recoverable: is the whole of the rental charges billed by the accident hire company recoverable?

His Honour, Basten J, found that the magistrate findings were in error and set them aside, in that, with respect to the hire of a prestige vehicle at $17,158.02 plus interest, this sum was excessive!  Among other things, his Honour found that the needs would have been satisfied by the hire of a Toyota Corolla.  In place of the magistrate’s findings His Honour, ordered the appeal to his Court, Allowed and that the vehicle hirer (Cassim) pay the at fault party (Nguyen) the sum of $7,476, together with interest.

Access to the His Honour, Basten J, full judgement may be found by clicking here.

The take away from this lesson is whenever you are involved in a car accident and may need a hire vehicle, please contact your Account Manager or click below for Warren Saunders Accident Assist which is available 24/07 on 9587 3500.

 

PIAWE Regulation Changes are here!

As you may have heard, the Workers Compensation Legislation Amendment Act 2018 has recently been passed through the NSW Government; and within this Legislation Amendment the Workers Compensation Amendment (Pre-Injury Average Weekly Earnings) Regulation 2019 was also published.

The PIAWE Regulation will change the way an injured workers pre-injury average weekly earnings (PIAWE) is calculated, and will come into effect for workers injured on or after Monday 21 October 2019. Many of the changes are quite technical in nature and will likely have little to no effect on the calculation of PIAWE for most claims.

We see the most significant change being an amendment to the 52 week drop down which will cease to exist for workers injured on or after 21/10/19. The 52 week drop down currently requires the insurer to exclude any shift or overtime benefits from the PIAWE; which often resulted in a reduction to the PIAWE and thus the top up benefit payable to an injured worker. As an example, a worker whose normal earnings were averaged to be $800 per week, who also had an average of $200 of shift and overtime earnings; would have a PIAWE calculation of $1000 for the first 52 weeks of benefits. This would then be reduced to $800 after 52 weeks of benefits were paid as a result of the $200 shift and overtime benefit being removed. For those workers who are injured on or after 21/10/2019; the $200 shift and overtime component will no longer be removed after 52 weeks of paid benefits; and therefore the PIAWE will remain at $1000 per week (subject to bi-annual indexation). Warren Saunders Insurance Brokers see this as an increased premium risk given wages paid on a claim are typically the greatest impacting cost on a client’s premium.

RELEVANT PERIOD CHANGES

• Any worker who was not continuously employed for a full 52 weeks will only have their PIAWE calculated on the most recent earnings period. Previously, if a worker worked for say 20 weeks, had 10 weeks off and then worked for a further 22 weeks when they were injured; the relevant period would consider the 42 weeks of paid employment. The Amendment means the relevant period will now only consider the recent 22 weeks where the worker was working before injury and not consider any period of paid employment prior to the break in employment. This would be quite relevant to those who employ workers on a seasonal basis for example.
• Any worker whose nature of employment arrangement changes which results in a material change to earnings will have prior periods excluded. For example if a worker goes from part time to full time, any part time earnings are excluded from calculation.
• Any periods where the worker takes unpaid leave for 7 days or more will now be excluded from the relevant period by excluding each day of unpaid leave within the relevant period.