Executive Risk

Directors & Officers

Recruiting and retaining talented corporate directors, officers, and trustees is a challenge faced by most companies.  Directors, officers, and trustees should be concerned about their personal liabilities associated with a board's actions or inactions.

The growth in public bankruptcies, corporate scandals, new legislation, and regulation in Canada and the U.S. has spawned litigation increasing personal risk to directors, officers, and trustees for boardroom responsibilities.

Comprehensive directors, officers, and trustees insurance coverage addresses this exposure and helps retain or attract quality board members.

Employment Practices

In our increasingly litigious society, every employer, large or small, faces the potential of being a target of legal action from past, present, and prospective employees. Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI) is not automatically covered under general liability or workers compensation.

Not only are the numbers of employment-related claims increasing, but so is the potential financial risk to businesses. Without EPL insurance, defending a wrongful termination or discrimination claim — whether innocent or guilty, whether groundless or fraudulent — can adversely impact the bottom line.

Professional Liability

Professional liability insurance, also known as errors and omissions insurance (E&O), protects you and/or your company from the costly defense and settlement of claims for errors, omissions, or the failure of your work to perform as promised or intended.

Professionals are expected to have extensive technical knowledge or training in their particular area of expertise and to perform services for which they were hired, according to the standards of conduct in their profession.  Certain professions (architects, engineers, lawyers, and medical practitioners) bear a more intrinsic E&O risk than others.

Coverage includes legal defense costs — no matter how baseless the allegation — and can pay for any resulting judgments, including court costs.

Fidelity/Crime

Fidelity/crime insurance protects organizations from loss of money, securities, or inventory resulting from crime.  Common fidelity/crime insurance claims allege employee dishonesty, embezzlement, forgery, robbery, safe burglary, computer fraud, wire transfer fraud, and counterfeiting.

Schemes involve every possible angle, taking advantage of any potential weakness in a company’s financial controls and usually occur over a period of time, including creating fictitious employees, dummy accounts payable, non-existent suppliers, and outright theft of money, securities, and property.  Fraud and embezzlement, among other white-collar crimes in the workplace, are not covered by the usual business property policy.