Your Policy Wording Explains it all
Insurance policies are complex contracts containing a myriad of conditions and exclusions and every insurer it seems uses different words, sentences and phrases in their policy wording documentation.
With every household and motor insurance policy purchased comes a booklet called a Product Disclosure Statement (PDS). Whilst all business related insurances have the terms of the contract with the insurer detailed in the Policy document that the insurer provides.
Granted, PDS booklets and Policy documents can be a dry old read but your understanding of the insurance cover you have purchased makes them essential reading. That sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach is all too real when a claimable event occurs and you find out that you didn't have the cover you thought you had.
A recent Policy Wording Readership survey of 1006 Australian small businesses (defined as those with less than 20 full-time employees) revealed that:
• 24% of clients always read the document
• 11% never read
• 26% only skimmed
• 10% rarely read
• 28% occasionally read
That suggests a whopping 75% of small business owners have no idea or next to no idea about what they are covered for under their business insurance policies. This huge margin of blissful ignorance by the small business sector is likely to be echoed at the domestic insurance level.
As with any contract, all the information is relevant and important and the best advice would be to read it from cover to cover.
