Aon | Financial Services Group
Employment Practices Liability
Employment practices liability (EPL) exposures, including those related to wage and hour (W&H) issues, are constantly changing. These notable shifts are impacting the workplace environment, which can materially impact your firm’s EPL/W&H insurance program (and the protection it provides).
Current trends and factors impacting EPL include:
- Amendments to, and increased enforcement of, federal, state, and local laws
- Changes in U.S. Supreme Court jurisprudence
- Social justice and pay equity
- Impact of COVID-19 and vaccination-related issues in the workplace
Employment Practices Liability and Wage and Hour Insurance
Despite heightened concerns around the changing nature of the risk, insurers continue to provide broad EPL coverage – addressing, among other things, discrimination, harassment, wrongful termination, and retaliation claims brought against the insured. Pricing and deductibles continue to increase, particularly for those organizations with heavily concentrated workforce populations in California, New York, and New Jersey or areas where there is a density of high-wage earners.
Historically, EPL policies have not provided a solution for W&H issues. For this reason, we created a full-indemnity W&H insurance product in 2012 - to protect against the legal consequences of misclassifying workers as exempt, non-exempt, independent contractors or employees and general pay practice violations. Department of Labor (DOL) statistics show that 90% of employment-related class actions tend to be in the W&H sphere. Our W&H product typically addresses risks in the U.S. (but can, in certain circumstances, cover exposures in Canada).
EPL Advisor / Wage & Hour Advisor
Professionals at the Financial Services Group at Aon provide insights into employment practices liability and wage & hour news – such as claims, trends and developments in the law, market updates, and evolving employment and wage & hour risk factors.