It is incredibly difficult to show any tolerance of offenders and maintaining personal emotional control is a challenge to say the least. It is quite clear that there are persons willing to take advantage of this fact by deliberately provoking retailers and their staff to accusing them of shoplifting in the knowledge that they could potentially be awarded damages which could cost as much as €22,000!

I want to again remind you that cover is provided under the Public Liability section of your Shop Insurance for such claims but you must remember to report any such incident to your insurer immediately.

I’ve heard this said by some of my retail friends over the years and I know that they really believe that they have carried out staff training based upon many years of experience working in retail.

Unfortunately, such conversations have come from those who have had a claim brought against them by a staff member and when I ask the following poignant two questions I have to tell them that the absence of appropriate training records leaves them with little if any defence.

Did you know that approximately one third of your insurance premium goes to pay for your Public Liability Insurance cover?

The highest claims cost under Shop Insurance is by a long way slips and trips.

The perception of "it's a try on!" is widespread but unfortunately frequently untrue. In the vast majority of cases they are accidents that could have been avoided.

Are you aware that you are legally required to have a Safety Statement? If you fail to have one, you will seriously jeopardize any potential defense you might have against legal action from an employee or customer seeking compensation for any injury that they allege occurred on your premises.

We have encountered retailers who have addressed this issue. Some have paid a considerable fee to "consultants" who have produced stereotypical binders which find their way into the drawer of a remote filing cabinet which seldom sees' the light of day!

In the event of any claim regardless of size, that any of your Sums Insured are determined to be inadequate, (such as on Buildings, Fixtures, Fittings & all other Contents, General Stock, Cigarettes & Tobacco, Wines & Spirits, etc.), your insurer will apply Average Clause, (IE. reduce the claim settlement by the same proportion.)

If you are underinsured by 50%, your claim will be reduced by half! For example, if you have a burglary where cigarettes to the value of €10,000 are stolen, your insurer will appoint a Loss Adjuster to call to you and deal with the claim. The first task undertaken by the Loss Adjuster is to check the adequacy/accuracy of your Sum Insured. If they find that your Sum Insured was €10,000, but that you actually normally carry a total stock of €20,000 then Average Clause will be applied and you will be allowed only €5,000 before deduction of your policy excess.

The highest claims costs under Shop Insurance is by a long way slips and trips.

Do you have a policy for dealing with spillages and wet days? 80% of slips arise from wet floors. Many are caused by spillages. Other causes are wet weather and very often staff cleaning/washing floors while the shop is still open for business. (This should only ever be done after the shop has closed and all customers have exited.)

After such incidents are reported to insurers a Claims Investigator is sent to the shop. The very first thing they do is to establish whether the retailer has a daily cleaning/floor monitoring record. If they do not, the insurer considers that our chance of defense has quite simply fallen at the first hurdle!