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After insurance policies expire, many businesses just throw away the paper copies and delete the digital files. But you may need to produce evidence of certain kinds of insurance even after the coverage period has expired. For this reason, it\u2019s best to take a long-term approach to certain types of policies.<\/p>\n
Occurrence-based insurance<\/strong><\/p>\n Generally, the policy types in question are called \u201coccurrence-based.\u201d They include:<\/p>\n You should retain documentation of occurrence-based policies permanently (or as long as your business is operating). A good example of why is in cases of embezzlement. Employee fraud of this kind may be covered under a commercial crime and theft policy. However, embezzlement sometimes isn\u2019t uncovered until years after the crime has taken place.<\/p>\n For instance, suppose that, during an audit, you learn an employee was embezzling funds three years ago. But the policy that covered this type of theft has since expired. To receive an insurance payout, you\u2019d need to produce the policy documents to prove that coverage was in effect when the crime occurred.<\/p>\n Retaining insurance documentation long-term isn\u2019t necessary for every type of policy. Under \u201cclaims-made\u201d insurance, such as directors and officers liability and professional liability, claims can be made against the insured business only during the policy period and during a \u201ctail period\u201d following the policy\u2019s expiration. A commonly used retention period for claims-made policies is about six years after the tail period expires.<\/p>\n Additional protection<\/strong><\/p>\n Along with permanently retaining proof of occurrence-based policies, it\u2019s a good idea to at least consider employment practices liability insurance (EPLI). These policies protect businesses from employee claims of legal rights violations at the hands of their employers. Sexual harassment is one type of violation that\u2019s covered under most EPLI policies \u2014 and such claims can arise years after the alleged crime occurred.<\/p>\n As is the case with occurrence-based coverage, if an employee complaint of sexual harassment arises after an EPLI policy has expired \u2014 but the alleged incident occurred while coverage was in effect \u2014 you may have to produce proof of coverage to receive a payout. So, you should retain EPLI documentation permanently as well.<\/p>\n Better safe than sorry<\/strong><\/p>\n You can\u2019t necessarily rely on your insurer to retain expired policies or readily locate them. It\u2019s better to be safe than sorry by keeping some insurance policies in either paper or digital format for the long term. This is the best way to ensure that you\u2019ll receive insurance payouts for events that happened while coverage was still in effect. Our firm can help you assess the proper retention periods of your insurance policies, as well as whether they\u2019re providing optimal value for your company.<\/p>\n \u00a9 2019<\/em><\/p>\n <\/body> After insurance policies expire, many businesses just throw away the paper copies and delete the digital files. But you may need to produce evidence of certain kinds of insurance even after the coverage period has expired. For this reason, it\u2019s best to take a long-term approach to certain types of policies. Occurrence-based insurance Generally, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sfw.cpa\/news-and-guides\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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