Importance of health, safety & environment to your business

Health, safety and environmental practices and your insurance costs

Health, safety and environmental problems can have huge costs. For example, if you cause someone's death, you could be sued for millions of pounds. Similarly, you could be held responsible for decontaminating land affected by leaks of hazardous substances from your factory.

Insurance provides some protection, though it rarely covers all the costs of accidents or illnesses. As a legal minimum, you must have employers' liability insurance if you employ people.

But from a business point of view, you may also need insurance against other risks, such as gradual environmental pollution over several years, clean-up costs or product liability. See our guides on liability insurance and how to choose an insurance adviser and present your risk.

Being able to show that your business has sound health and safety and environmental policies and procedures is essential if you want to get competitive insurance premiums.

Insurers will want to assess the measures you've put in place to minimise the risks of an incident occurring. This may involve an audit of your premises. If they aren't happy with your approach to health, safety and the environment, your premiums will go up.

At worst you might not be able to find an insurer prepared to cover you. And that could make it impossible for you to continue trading.

If, in contrast, you can show you take risk management seriously, you may be able to reduce your premiums. See our guide on management systems, prevention and recovery.

Subjects covered in this guide

• Introduction
• Compliance with health, safety and environmental rules
• Avoid the costs of illness, accidents and incidents at work
• Improve your reputation through health, safety and environmental practices
• Introduce environmental cost-reductions
• Health, safety and environmental practices and your insurance costs
• Plan ahead to get health, safety and the environment right

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