When an Injury Occurs at Your Business

When an injury occurs at your business, it creates a litany of issues that can create horrible scenarios for you. Creating an environment that fosters good relationships between your customers and your business is crucial to its success. When customers experience an injury firsthand or learn later about how you handled another’s injury, both in the moment and through their aftercare, your reputation is on the line. The worst-case lawsuits and medical settlements are potentially catastrophic, so every business needs General Liability Insurance.

Liability insurance can protect your business against injury claims. Likewise, it helps when someone blames the company for a loss. It can include a customer suffering a slip and fall injury. Such incidents are random, and it is nearly impossible to avoid all events that can ruin your business if lawsuit balloons out of control. For these reasons, having a GL policy with the correct limits is necessary to safeguard your business’s longevity.

Be Ready to Respond Quickly

If visitors hurt themselves on your business premises, you must act immediately to aid them. It is a sound practice that will reduce damage to your business. It’s crucial to ensure the injury doesn’t affect your business’s reputation and that the injured party doesn’t sue if possible. An important factor is ensuring the injured party isn’t left with unpaid medical bills.

Here are ten tips to help you when an injury occurs at your business:

1. Contact the police immediately and file a report if the situation calls for it.
2. Ensure you can account for all employees and visitors involved in the incident.
3. Keep the scene safe by removing any obstacles or impediments.
4. Get the names and information of witnesses
5. Collect evidence like broken glass footprints, take videos and pictures of the accident site and establish procedures for safe keeping records related to the incident.
6. Please get permission from the injured person before taking their statement.
7. Contact your insurance carrier and agent to report the incident, file a claim, and be ready to answer their questions about the incident.
8. Do not attempt to settle a claim. Your insurance company will assign legal counsel to defend a covered claim.
9. Always be careful when dealing with customers, which includes ensuring you and your employees and representatives never make promises to customers that you cannot keep.
10. Following up with customers after an accident is the best practice because having cordial relationships with your customers can become essential to your success and deter frivolous lawsuits.

When an accident happens, attend to your customers right away. Ask if they are okay and determine if they need medical attention. If they do, take appropriate steps to get them to help quickly. If they don’t need medical attention, help them, and make them comfortable. Make sure that they can stand and walk away safely. It’s an excellent gesture of concern and goodwill to provide the opportunity for a lift home with assurances they can get their vehicle returned or get a ride to pick it up later.

At Dickstein Associates Agency, we work daily to protect our clients’ businesses from liability exposure and financial loss. We’ll help you weather potential liability exposures and financial casualties by proposing a comprehensive business insurance plan that includes a General Liability policy. We invite you to use our expertise to help prevent liability accidents and to protect your business when they do.