One Lawsuit Can End a Business — Until Liability Cover Pays the Claim and the Legal Costs

Ask most Nigerian business owners whether they are insured against being sued and the answer is usually the same: no, and the reasoning is almost always the same too — we are careful, it will not happen to us. The business took years to build, a single client or customer dispute could swallow a year’s profit, and yet the whole enterprise trades on the assumption that a lawsuit is someone else’s problem.

That assumption holds right up until the day a claim lands. Liability cover — arranged through My Insure Bank — exists for exactly that day. It is not a formality and it is not money down the drain: it pays the compensation you are found liable for and the legal costs of defending the claim, up to your limit of indemnity. The protection is real. The problem is that most businesses never put it in place.

“The cover most businesses treat as optional is the one that pays the claim — and the legal bill — when they are sued, up to the limit of indemnity, settled through My Insure Bank. Most simply never buy it.”

What a liability policy from My Insure Bank actually does

Liability insurance protects two things at once: the claim and the defence. Public liability answers for injury or damage your business causes a third party; product liability for harm from what you make or sell; professional indemnity and errors & omissions for advice or a service that caused a client a loss; employers’ liability for staff hurt at work; directors’ & officers’ for claims against the board; and cyber liability for a data breach. Bought through My Insure Bank, the policy pays what you are liable for and funds the legal defence, up to the limit of indemnity you set when the cover is arranged.

This is the one number that matters most, and it is why liability cover is framed differently from motor. A third-party motor policy carries a regulated payout; a liability policy is built around the limit of indemnity you choose. Set it to match the realistic worst-case claim your trade could face, and the policy is there to absorb it. Set it too low to shave a little off the premium, and you carry the shortfall yourself. Getting that figure right is part of what a broker is for.

The claims a liability policy is built for

These are not abstract risks. They are the everyday disputes that can empty a business’s account in a single judgment:

• The customer who slipped on your shop floor and sued — public liability pays the injury claim and the legal costs.
• The advice or service that went wrong and cost a client money — professional indemnity defends and settles the negligence claim.
• The data breach that leaked customer records — cyber liability funds the breach response and the third-party claims that follow.

Why “it won’t happen to us” is the costliest bet

The deeper issue is the same one that keeps so many Nigerian businesses underinsured everywhere: a quiet belief that liability cover is money wasted, and that being sued is something that happens to other people. But a business that is never sued is not proof that the risk was never real — it is simply a bet that paid off until the year it did not. And unlike a bad month of trading, a judgment and its legal bill are not something most businesses can absorb out of cash flow.

Liability cover turns that catastrophe into a claim. Through My Insure Bank, the cover that pays the claim and funds the defence is there before the lawsuit, not improvised after it.

How to actually claim — through My Insure Bank

If your business faces a claim or lawsuit and you hold a valid liability policy bought through My Insure Bank, the claim is handled for you rather than left to chance:

• Report the claim the moment it arrives — note what happened, who is claiming, and forward any letter of demand or court process without responding to it yourself.
• Our claims team logs it with your insurer and appoints the defence, so you are not negotiating with a claimant or funding lawyers out of pocket.
• Once liability is assessed, the claim and the legal costs are settled up to your limit of indemnity — so the loss does not fall on the business.

The takeaway is simple. The claim most businesses never insure against is usually the one large enough to end them. Liability cover from My Insure Bank is what stands in front of the business on the worst day — cover that pays the claim and the legal costs, up to your limit of indemnity, so a single lawsuit does not undo years of work.