XL Launches Wage & Hour Liability Insurance Coverage

June 25, 2013

XL Group’s Bermuda Professional Lines Unit has launched a new insurance product to specifically address the needs of Fortune 500 companies and other large employers potentially exposed to employee compensation and classification disputes.

The new Wage & Hour liability insurance product provides coverage for Wage & Hour defense and indemnity liability. Since Wage & Hour claims involve a variety of allegations such as unpaid overtime, employee misclassification and failure to pay minimum wage that can result in Wage & Hour collective and class actions, costing employers millions of dollars, XL Group’s Bermuda Professional Lines Unit has developed a standalone product which offers several features, including:

“In recent years the U.S. Department of Labor has been strongly enforcing the Fair Labor Standards Act, and the plaintiffs class action bar has also turned its attention to the fertile ground of broad laws and shifting workforce arrangements emerging in these economically challenging times. This landscape has led to a proliferation of large cases involving alleged violations of Wage & Hour laws, making it one of the fastest growing sources of litigation activity in both U.S. federal and state courts,” said Matthew Irvine, chief underwriting officer of XL Group’s Bermuda Professional Lines Unit.

“Companies involved in such disputes, whether the disputes are legitimate or not, are often required to invest an increasing amount of time and resources in what are notoriously expensive cases to defend. They also face potential reputational and operational risks.”

Source: XL Group