With the constantly evolving employment-related legislation and growing awareness among employees of their rights, employers are increasingly at risk of employment-related claims. Employees today are better positioned to seek benefits for perceived wrongful acts in the course of their employment, including allegations such as:

• Bullying and harassment
• Sexual harassment
• Direct or indirect discrimination
• Unfair dismissal or termination
• Retaliation

Additionally, your policy may cover claims from other types of inappropriate workplace conduct, such as:

• Defamation
• Negligent evaluation
• Wrongful refusal to hire or promote
• Invasion of privacy
• Denial of a career opportunity

Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) is intended to protect employers (directors, officers, management personnel, employees as insureds) against the financial burden resulting from the above claims, subject to the terms of your policy.

The coverage also includes insurance for reputation injury, which helps to reimburse the cost of hiring a professional media management firm, a professional public relations consultant, and/or a professional security consulting firm, who will help with damage control following the allegations and keep your family/home safe from media intrusions.

Expectations of the coverage

EPLI policies are drafted on a claim-made basis, and feature provisions for “shrinking limits”, which implies that the insurer’s payments towards your defense costs will cause your policy’s limits to reduce. This is contrary to the commercial general liability (CGL) policies, where defense costs do not affect the policy limits. EPLI also does not cover bodily injury (BI), property damage (PD), and dishonest or deliberate acts.

The cost of obtaining EPLI coverage varies depends on a number of factors, including the number of employees in your organization, any history of suits against your company, the rate of employee turnover, existence of company rules and policies, and so on.

You can choose to purchase EPLI as a stand-alone policy in conjunction with your Business Owner’s Policy (BOP), or as an endorsement to your General Liability policy (GLP) or BOP.

Customized Solutions

Capital Providers Insurance Services can help to design and customize Employment Practices Liability solutions that address the specific needs of your organization, giving you financial protection and peace of mind that your business assets and reputation will not be affected in the event that you're faced with wrongful employment practice claims.