Employment Tribunal Insurance

What is Employment Tribunal Insurance?

Employment tribunal insurance is insurance that protects an employer against employment tribunal claims and the associated risks. It enables employers to cover the legal costs of defending an employment tribunal claim, as well as the costs of compensation payable to an employee as the result of a tribunal award.

Due to the increasing complexity of UK employment law, tribunals are becoming more common, and failing to comply with the law can result in serious problems for your business. Employment tribunal insurance offers the peace of mind of knowing that, should the worst happen, you won’t end up paying unexpected legal bills that you can’t afford.

How The HR Dept can help with your Employment Tribunal Insurance

Employment law changes almost daily and it can be hard to keep up with the complexity. Disputes between employers and employees cost a lot in terms of both time and money, taking focus from growing your business and putting pressure on your profits. If you have avoided an employment tribunal so far, you should count yourself lucky, as the number of claims has risen dramatically since the removal of tribunal fees in 2017. There are likely to increase again following the Employment Rights Bill. This will increase the claim limit for employees from three months to six, as well as making unfair dismissals a day one right.

Without the right advice, many employers can find themselves in an impossible situation. This is why it is crucial to get the right professional advice. If you get the wrong type of insurance, you could find you aren’t covered should you end up at a tribunal. Conversely, if you don’t get expert HR advice, you may end up throwing away money by taking out insurance that you don’t need. It can also be the case that your claim is invalidated, and your insurer won’t pay out if you haven’t followed every rule of employment law to the letter.

The HR Dept is here to help. Many businesses can’t afford to employ an HR professional, which puts them at risk of making costly mistakes, but by working with The HR Dept you don’t need to. We can provide you with access to expert advice, backed by our comprehensive employment tribunal insurance. By working with us, we can make sure you’re covered against the types of employment claim that regularly cost employers tens of thousands of pounds in legal fees and tribunal settlements.

Get protected with our Employment Tribunal Insurance

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Common Types of Employment Tribunal Claims

There are various claims that an employee might be able to bring depending on their individual circumstances. These include:

• Breach of contract. An employee may bring this claim if they believe that one or more of the terms of their contract has been broken.
• Unlawful deduction from wages An example of this could be that the employee claims you have not paid them in lieu of notice which they believe they are entitled to under their contract.
• Unfair dismissal. This type of claim could be successful if the employee was not dismissed for a fair reason and the correct process as outlined by the Acas Code of Practice was not followed. Currently, an employee needs to have worked for you for at least two years in order to bring an unfair dismissal claim. This is likely to become a day one right following the Employment Rights Bill.
• Wrongful dismissal. Unlike unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal has no requirement for an employee to have a set period of continuous employment. It is a contractual claim. The most common example of this type of claim is failure to give an employee the correct length of notice.
• Discrimination Claims These claims made by employees relating to protected characteristics (disability, age, race, marriage or civil partnership, sex, religion or belief, pregnancy or maternity, sexual orientation or gender reassignment) come under discrimination laws. These can be made from the start of the recruitment process.

Why choose The HR Dept Tribunal Insurance

Our tribunal insurance offers value for money, reliability and, most importantly, peace of mind. We won’t put you through a ‘no prospect of success’ test, as many insurers do, as all you have to do is carefully follow our HR advice and you will be fully covered. We also have an affordable excess for claims and no co-insurance clauses, meaning you won’t be stung by potentially unlimited percentage contributions should an employment tribunal happen.

Due to the consistent high quality standards of advice across our network, cover by our tribunal insurance scheme does not require pre-approval of significant HR actions from the insurer in order for the insurance to remain valid. This means we can be very responsive and dynamic when you need advice and action. We are also able to act quickly in terms of commencement with immediate cover for new issues that occur after the policy has started. We have no time exclusion/waiting period that you will see in other policies -other than for redundancy processes which are excluded in the first three months.

As well as our extensive HR expertise, you will also benefit from our industry-experienced insurance broker and specialist employment law solicitor partners, which puts your business in very safe hands. Our team knows that different businesses have different levels of risk in their industry. Our insurance offering has various optional add-ons to your policy to give you greater peace of mind, including cover for restrictive covenants, certain data protections issues, TUPE and more.

Our employment tribunal insurance features:

• No pre-approval of advice required
• Immediate commencement of cover for new issues.
• No ‘minimum prospect-of-success’ test (the term used by other policies that allows insures to refuse to insure many claims)
• No “co-insurance contribution” clause – just one affordable excess applies
• Long-standing partnerships
• Additional cover options available

We pride ourselves on communication, clarity and doing all we can to help reduce the stress and admin burden that comes with employee tribunal claims.

This is just a quick summary of our cover, and like all insurance policies, there are terms and conditions that apply. If you have any questions, please get in touch to discuss any questions you may have or to request a fully detailed summary of our cover.

Our expert Advice Line

When you sign up to our Advice Line service, you will benefit from unlimited HR and employment law support via phone and email.

Whether you have a small HR team and need additional support, or have no dedicated HR function, our Advice Line service can provide you with the reassurance and advice you need.

And you get the comfort that we are never far away should you require us to support you face to face.

We provide a local and personal service and believe that to be able to deliver the most effective HR advice to your business, it is important to get to know your team and the HR issues you face.

With ever changing employment legislation, it can be a confusing position to be in as a business owner. Crucially, our Advice Line package includes employment tribunal insurance that is backed with commercially driven HR and employment law advice. We tell you what you can do, rather than what you can’t.

If you’d like to know more about employment tribunal insurance or our Advice Line service, contact us today.

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