Organisations working in the life sciences industry perform vital, highly specialised tasks. The work of some organisations in the industry—such as biomedical companies discovering and testing new drugs—takes years to come to fruition.

Life sciences companies create essential, specific products with perilous paths to market. Manufacturing such highly specialised products requires equally specialised insurance to help protect your business from the unique threats to the life sciences industry—most of which are not covered under typical commercial policies. To ensure your business has comprehensive insurance protection that covers your industry’s special risks, life science and biomedical insurance can step in.

The Main Cover You May Need:

Public liability insurance: Public liability covers your legal liability for injury to third parties and damage to their property resulting from your business’ operations.

Products liability insurance: This cover indemnifies your business against its legal liability for injury or damage arising from its products or services. As a company that helps develop and test products for the public, this cover is essential.

Employers’ liability: If you have any employees, you must purchase employers’ liability cover (unless you fall within very limited exceptions), which helps cover your legal liability for employee injuries on-site.

Property damage: Property damage can cover your buildings and contents against accidental damage, theft, fire and storm damage. Depending on your business, this cover may be essential.

Clinical trials: Clinical trials help to shield your business against your legal liability for injury to research subjects and damage to their property. Because clinical trials can be long, drawn-out affairs with sometimes unexpected results, clinical trial cover can help avoid awful surprises and provide peace of mind.

Business interruption: Most businesses in the life sciences industry must contend with protracted development periods before their products ever make it to market. During these development periods, businesses are extremely vulnerable to any obstacle that has the potential to halt operations. Business interruption cover grants protection for issues such as loss of revenue due to an interruption to your business’ operations.

Research and development (R&D) expenditure: R&D expenditure provides cover for the cost of reworking tests or experiments following an insured hazard that destroyed research and impeded your progress.

Intellectual property: For companies involved in developing new products, intellectual property cover is a must—it provides protection towards copyright, trademark or patent infringement claims. This cover can offer protection against third-party infringement of clients’ intellectual property, as well as the event that clients are alleged to have infringed a third party’s intellectual property.

Terrorism and ideologically motivated attacks: Most UK insurers exclude terrorism cover, but some in the life sciences industry do offer it. Terrorism and ideologically motivated attacks cover protects against damage caused by politically motivated acts of destruction. Your scope of cover will depend on your insurer’s definition of ‘terrorism’, as some insurers only provide protection for ‘political’ terrorism, not ‘ideological’ or ‘religious’. As a life sciences business developing life-saving products using what some may deem controversial methods, terrorism and ideologically motivated attacks cover provides necessary security.

Additional Cover for Life Science Companies

Given the varied needs of businesses in the life sciences industry, some of the main extensions to life sciences and biomedical policies include but not limited to:

• Controlled environment deviation
• Machinery breakdown
• Computer breakdown
• Public relations crisis management
• Data protection
• Stock deterioration

Call us directly or complete our quote form and we’ll conduct a full review of your business’ insurance needs

We will approach our panel of insurers to find cover that meets your requirements at a competitive rate

Once agreed, your policy will start and you’ll be protected towards several eventualities.