Crisis Management

Contamination in products continues to create havoc for consumers and businesses around the globe. Whether the contamination is accidental or the result of product tampering, Liberty’s Contaminated Product Insurance policy coverage protects all aspects of the food, beverage, cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries.

Our crisis management team supports brokers and their clients through the whole process, from customising cover to handling claims.

In the event of a crisis, it is the client’s response in the critical first hours and days that will determine the impact of the crisis on the business. This is when the experience and expertise of Liberty’s Crisis Management consultants is crucial: they can provide advice and assistance to help deal with the crisis at hand and help protect our clients’ brands and business reputation.

Our crisis response consultants have more than 20 years of experience in the food industry, and Liberty’s claims team has been efficiently handling recall claims since 2009.

The financial impact of product recalls can be highly damaging. In many cases, product recall expenses are excluded under standard product liability insurance policies and so little, if any, cover is provided for a client’s loss.

Liberty’s PRplus insurance policy offers broader protection. Additionally, the policy can be varied to meet the specific needs of an organisation, including additional cover (such as Product Guarantee) and limits to match exposures.

In the past food and beverage manufacturers have relied on contaminated product policies, which only offer protection in the event of an incident that could cause bodily harm to a consumer. However, food and beverage production is a fine art and sometimes problems on the manufacturing line can leave a product safe but tasting different or unfit for consumption.

Our SME Food and Beverage Recall policy is specifically tailored for businesses with annual sales of less than US$20 million. This simple yet comprehensive policy offers pre-underwritten premiums for up to US$1 million limit of liability, subject to the terms and conditions of the policy. Designed to respond to both product recalls and withdrawals, it helps to protect importers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors of finished products from the risk of contamination and the withdrawal of their product, due to a manufacturing error or quality control issue.

In the event of a safety or non-compliance issue with automotive components, businesses that manufacture, import, distribute or sell defective components, are responsible for taking recall action. A recall event can be very expensive, and suppliers of these automotive components will be financially impacted.

Liberty offers a PRplus Product Recall policy for automotive components. Customised for individual client’s needs, and with all the benefits of a PRplus product, Automotive Components Recall insurance also includes cover for exports to the USA and Canada, the ability to include product guarantee and covers critical components.

Plus, in addition to protection against losses such as recall costs (both retailer and consumer), replacement, refund and repair costs, and consultant advisor costs, PRplus Automotive Components Recall insurance also provides protection against third party financial loss and defence costs.

To help clients and brokers keep in touch with the latest product recall trends, Liberty publishes a regular newsletter, Recall Monitor, that lists the latest recall incidents, their cause and location.

In the event of an incident that may be covered under a Liberty Crisis Solutions Policy the following notice protocols must be followed. Whether or not one of our consultants, or the crisis centre hotline has been contacted, you should contact one of the Liberty representatives to report the incident.

Reporting the incident to Liberty’s representatives is in accordance with the terms of the notice requirements in Clause 6.2 of this Policy.