Advice for charitable organisations
As a charitable organisation you bring people together to make a difference. Helping in many different ways, charities can often find themselves giving information, raising awareness; or even providing financial assistance 1. However, many charities often don’t understand that even they have liability exposures.
Mistakes are made, even when you have the best of intentions. If you provide negligent advice, this may lead to civil action against the charity.
The severity of consequences can vary, for example: Miscommunication whilst completing complicated housing forms could result in a rejected housing benefit claim for a vulnerable person. Or perhaps you accidentally breach a clients' confidentiality by leaving a data-packed USB stick in a café or emailing data to the wrong organisation. Professional indemnity cover would help any defence and indeed any compensation costs.
In recent years, it was reported in the press that Victim Support Scotland (VSS) had to stop providing advice to people making criminal injury compensation claims (CIC) after a victim sued the charity for £100,000. VSS were taken to court for providing poor advice regarding compensation a victim may have been owed. VSS had supported the victim to claim for criminal injuries compensation and, in 2013, the victim was reportedly awarded £17,000.
However, reports state that it was claimed that the victim could have received a much larger amount of compensation had VSS also provided advice to claim for loss of earnings. The judge ruled in favour of the victim, stating that VSS had failed to act with “reasonable skill and care, a duty to address the loss of earnings and to help the victim seek to have the award reviewed.” 2 Due to VSS being exposed to legal action they had no choice but to pay the legal fees which unfortunately meant they couldn’t carry on the service they were offering.
Professional indemnity cover for charities
At CNA Hardy, we have a specialist team of underwriters across the UK and Continental Europe; over 20 industry specific wordings solutions; and Lloyd’s capability to write broker wordings. Our Professional Indemnity cover is tailored to meet the needs of the individual client.
Find out more about our specialist PI capabilities, core appetite and covers here.
Beth Louise Newton
Underwriter, Professional Indemnity
(1) https://howcharitieswork.com/about-charities/what-charities
(2) http://thirdforcenews.org.uk/tfn-news/charity-axes-compensation-advice-after-being-sued-by-victim