3 Ways To Protect Your Business From A Personal Injury Suit
As a small business owner, of one of the many bad things that might befall you is becoming the defendant in a personal injury suit. Whether someone slipped and fell in your store or you were involved in a wrongful death suit, there are many ways that a customer or employee can levy such a case against you. Throughout the course of this brief guide, you will learn about a few ways in which you can protect your business from a personal injury suit.
Coverage
You should take provisions in the case that you lose a personal injury suit. Among the insurance plans that can help you, Commercial General Liability (CGL) plans can often times cover the entirety of the amount that you had to pay in damages, minus any punitive damages that you had to pay.
Streamline Communications and Talking Points
Make sure that everyone on your staff – including supervisors down to the lowest employee on the rung – are all on the same page, especially about safety regulations and rules. As the owner of a small business, make sure that everyone is communicating about safety concerns in a clear, concise, and most importantly, all encompassing manner. Take the time to call a meeting to discuss safety regulations, what is at risk, and why it is important to have a staff that can clearly communicate the concerns of the restaurant with fellow employees. Make sure that this form of communication makes it possible to facilitate taking care of potential safety issues, such as cleaning up a spill in an aisle of a supermarket, or making sure that knives are properly secured in the kitchen during the closing hours of a restaurant.
Protect Your Employees
Make sure that your employees are properly taken care of just as you would a customer. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is also your legal responsibility. Take into consideration that your employees can also file a personal injury suit against your business if they are harmed on the job. Make sure that your safety record is entirely clear and that you have taken all of the precautions that you possibly can so that you do not create the conditions in which an employee can sue you. You can do very simply things to ensure this doesn't happen, like labeling fire exits and potential hazard areas and making sure that all of your employees are aware of them.