How to read your policy documents How to read your policy documents

Your policy documents are your legal contract of insurance and can be long and complex to read. We break through the jargon and dense legal language to help you find exactly what you need, when you need it.

Why do you need to read your policy documents?

You're making changes to your business

If you’re considering growing your business, you may want to check whether your business insurance is still fit for purpose.

Whether you’re thinking of taking on more employees, opening in a new territory or broadening the range of services that you provide, it’s important to check if you’ll still be covered by your existing policy or if you need to adjust.

How to check your documents when making changes

You need to make a claim

In the unfortunate event that you need to make a claim on your insurance, you may want to check your policy documents first to see whether the thing you're claiming for is actually covered.

How to read your documents when making a claim

You want to see what’s included before you buy

If you’ve got a quote on an insurance policy, you might want to be totally sure you’re covered for what you need before you buy.

Every insurance policy will contain some exclusions so checking your policy documents will allow you to see exactly what’s covered and what isn’t.

Where to find your policy documents

Superscript is a digital-first insurance broker, so our customers' policy documents are entirely digital. Depending on whether you're an existing customer or you're about to buy a policy, you can find your documents in a variety of places.

1

In the Superscript quote builder — before checkout

Once you've got your quote and you're just about ready to buy your insurance, you'll be able to find a pre-purchase version of your policy documents. You can download these before you checkout. When you get to a page called 'Review your subscription details', you’ll see a button called 'Policy wording'

2

In your welcome email

When you buy an insurance policy from Superscript, we'll send you a welcome email. This email includes all the details of your cover, as well as a copy of your policy documents.

3

In the Superscript customer portal

Once you're a Superscript customer, you can log into your customer portal. The Superscript portal is your personal digital vault where you can view the details of your cover, your billing details and download your policy documents. Your evidence of cover certificate is also stored here.

What are the different sections of a policy document?

Often, insurance policy documents aren't shown in order. To really understand your cover, you need to be ready to jump back and forth between different sections. So what are those sections and what do they contain?

Schedule

In an insurance policy document, the schedule usually sits at the top. Your schedule will list:

  • Your business' details (name, business activity and registered address)
  • Your policy's anniversary date
  • The monthly or annual price of your premium

In some policy documents, the schedule may also show the geographical and jurisdictional limits of your policy.

Below this (or on the next page) is a list of all the covers that are (and are not) included in the policy, and the limits of each cover. This may be called either:

  • Sections you have chosen to cover
  • Limits of liability

Below is an illustration of what it’ll look like in your policy documents.

Policy document schedule example

Back to list of sections

Endorsements

In an insurance policy document, ‘endorsements’ are essentially a list of add-ons, extensions or amendments to the policy wording.

It’s important to pay close attention to your endorsements because they trump everything that comes before or after them in the document. Endorsements are usually (but not always) industry-wide additions added to all policy wordings across the market.

Here’s an example of an endorsement from a real Superscript policy document:

Disease exclusion

Notwithstanding any other provision within your policy, no cover is provided under the Business equipment section of your policy for any loss (including loss of value and loss of use), damage, claim, cost or expense of whatsoever nature, directly or indirectly caused by or in any way contributed to by, resulting from, arising out of, or in connection with:

1. any excluded pathogens or diseases

Excluded pathogens or diseases means

Any coronavirus or the disease it causes, including but not limited to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (COVID-19), severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) (SARS), Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) (MERS), or any mutation or variation thereof

Now that's a lot of complex legal language. In simple terms this means that when it comes to this person’s business equipment cover, they will not be covered for any claim arising in connection with coronavirus. This was added as an endorsement across the insurance industry in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Back to list of sections

Definitions

Sometimes called ‘meaning of defined terms’, this section really does what it says on the tin. It clearly defines what important terms mean so whenever they’re used throughout the rest of the document, you can refer to the definitions section to know exactly what they mean.

Throughout the policy document, you'll see terms that are highlighted in bold so you know that what you’re reading is a defined term and will have a specific meaning.

For example, you might read:

"We will pay all damages and claims costs that you become legally obliged to pay because of a claim made against you during the period of insurance."

This sentence has six defined terms in it:

  • We
  • Damages
  • Claims costs
  • You
  • Claim
  • Period of insurance

You can refer to the definitions section to see a specific definition of what those terms mean so you know exactly what’s covered.

Some insurers will place their definitions close to the beginning of the policy document to introduce the terms that will be used throughout. Others will place them at the end, like the index in a book.

Get to grips with more insurance jargon in our business insurance jargon buster.

Back to list of sections

Policy conditions

Every policy document will include a section called the 'policy conditions'. Often, each cover within your policy will have its own 'section conditions' that refer to that cover specifically.

So if you’ve bought employers’ liability insurance and public liability insurance in one policy, you’ll have two ‘section conditions’. One for the employers’ liability and another for the public liability.

Policy or section conditions are a set of rules or requirements that need to be met for your cover to be valid.

These conditions can refer to actions you need to take or processes you must have in place while you're insured. For example, a policy document for cyber insurance might include a section condition that lists all the cyber-security measures you have to have in place for your cyber cover to be valid. This could be making sure all your business devices have multi-factor authentication enabled.

If you've not complied with these conditions, then in that example scenario, you might find you're not covered if a cyber breach were to happen.

Alternatively, the conditions might address what you have to do when making a claim in order for it to be valid. These are sometimes called a 'claims notification condition' or a 'claims procedure condition'. For your claim to be valid, you must ensure you comply with all these conditions.

Back to list of sections

Insuring clauses

In your policy documents, this is called 'What we cover' or 'What is covered'. This section lays out what your policy covers and what the insurer will pay for.

Insuring clauses will often be written in the following style:

  • We will pay for all damages and claims expenses you become legally obliged to pay because of...
  • We will reimburse all financial loss sustained by your organisation as a direct result of...
  • We will cover the amount of compensation which you are legally liable to pay in respect of...
  • We will pay claim costs in connection with...
  • We will compensate you at the rate of...

Back to list of sections

Exclusions

Your policy documents will also lay out what isn’t covered. This section is called ‘What we don’t cover’ or ‘What’s not covered’. The exclusions section will almost always come after the insuring clauses section. It lists explicitly lists what scenarios are not covered by the policy.

A common exclusion across the insurance industry, for example, relates to any claim in connection with asbestos.

Policy document exclusion example

This market-wide exclusion makes clear that the policy will not cover the cost of any claim associated with the presence of, removal of or exposure to asbestos.

Back to list of sections

This content has been created for general information purposes and should not be taken as formal advice. Please always refer to your policy documents for full details around exclusions, terms and limits of your customised cover.

Need to get in touch?

If you have any questions about your policy documents, just drop us an email or give us a call.

Call us

0333 772 0759+31 10 8080 889

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