Perhaps the most valuable head of cover for most SMEs, this section provides the Insured’s own legal costs both when defending a claim against them by a customer or supplier; and when pursuing a customer or supplier over the breach of a term in a written commercial contract. Circumstances include where a retailer Insured has had to pursue a supplier over sub-standard goods which they had bought to sell on; and where the Insured has a lawyer defend them when they have refused to pay a hire company for a faulty piece of plant equipment leased to them.

Tax Audit is now becoming a well-established standalone product in Australia and has been included with Legal Protection policies for a number of years. If you are not familiar with it, this cover will in certain circumstances pay for an Insured’s accountant to respond to an audit by the ATO. If the audit escalates into a dispute, the policy can extend to also cover a specialist lawyer to represent the insured in any proceedings which may arise.

An SME’s customer base and sensitive commercial information is its lifeblood. When an employee leaves, it is imperative that they are not able to take this information to a new employer and use it to prejudice the SME’s interests. This cover ensures that where a restrictive covenant preventing them from doing so is written into their employment contract, legal assistance is on hand from a specialist in the field to enforce the relevant terms as far as the law will permit, in order to mitigate the damage caused.

Whenever an SME rents its business premises from a commercial landlord there is scope for dispute over the terms of the lease and alleged breaches arising from it. Our policy will provide your client with a lawyer to pursue a claim against their landlord or defend themselves in the event that they are accused of a breach.

Where an SME holds a Statutory Licence, this is often business critical, and they are put in a very difficult position if it is put under threat. Our policy will provide expert legal assistance to challenge any attempt to suspend, revoke or alter the terms of the licence to the Insured’s detriment.  

Cashflow is vital to all SME businesses and when invoices are not paid over protracted periods things can get difficult. Our debt recovery service will provide assistance for the Insured to exert pressure in recovering the sums due, and ultimately taking the matter to court if this fails to bring about the desired outcome.

Every one of our Legal Protection policies comes with a free legal advice service, which allows the Insured to receive targeted advice from a lawyer about their business-related predicament.

An additional offering to the above, we can also provide a policy which the Insured buys on behalf of their staff as an employee benefit, which will cover individual employees in their personal capacity for such things as:

• Consumer Contract Disputes
• Neighbour Disputes
• Personal Injury Claim Pursuit
• Tax Audit
• Legal Advice Service

Provides an indemnity in respect of adverse costs ordered to be paid by the insured in ongoing litigation. Mainly   applicable   to   claimants   in   common   law   jurisdictions which operate a “loser pays” costs shifting rule and often bought by third party litigation funders either on an individual, per case basis or in respect of an entire portfolio of funded litigation.

Pursuit and legal defence costs and damages in respect of  patent/trademark/copyright  disputes.  Insurance  of  intangible  assets  has  been  identified  by  Lloyd’s  as  a  key  plank  of  future  strategy  and  SCOR  Syndicate looks  forward  to  embracing  the  possibilities  which  this  will  help generate.