Holiday Season Parties and Your Insurance

Company Christmas parties are still a month or so away... but planning is surely underway. Are YOU going to provide alcohol: beer, wine, or spirits, for employees to drink at your event? You want your employees to enjoy their work-related events and parties, but you also want to keep your employees and yourself safe.

Worries can extend from harassment to employee fatalities!

Holiday parties often bring more than just intoxicated fun. Being merry can sometimes mean crossing the line, ranging from offending a coworker to violating the law. Moreover, in today’s real-time social media environment, drunken shenanigans at a holiday party can quickly be posted online for the whole world to see.

The first two actions an employer needs to take prior to the holiday party include reminding employees that respect and professionalism apply not only on work time but also at company-sponsored events such as office parties. Secondly, employers need to establish social media policies that prohibit employees from posting photographs or video without management permission in social media.

A second major legal liability is created by drunk driving following an employer-sponsored holiday party. An employee who consumed alcohol at your company-sponsored event and, after leaving, strikes another car and kills the driver may create liability for YOU.

BE SURE YOU’RE COVERED LEGALLY

If you are responsible for organizing a company event, there’s a good chance you’ve already got a lot on your mind. Organizing a significant event requires lots of time and mental energy, which means it can be very easy to overlook something important like acquiring event liability insurance. And yet, without acquiring this kind of insurance, you could be exposing yourself and your company to a lawsuit should something go wrong. Not only is this a problem for you and your company, but it could seriously impact your company’s revenue, thereby impacting your income and putting those closest to you in danger.

Event Liability Insurance provides you with the coverage you need in the event of a lawsuit arising from an event with or without the service of alcohol. It’s the right way to protect yourself and ensure that, even if something does go wrong, it won’t seriously prevent you from hosting similar events in the future.

Alcohol can be a festive addition to a company event, but at company events, as in your workplace, employee safety is your top concern.

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