You don’t have to be driving a vehicle to be liable for an accident

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2026 April 22

You may think that to be liable for an accident you need to be the one in the driver’s seat, however if a business is involved it can completely change who is deemed to be ‘responsible’.

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA), a Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) has a "Primary Duty of Care" to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of their workers and anyone else affected by their work.

A recent incident where a wrongly loaded trailer caused a serious accident, saw WorkSafe take a prosecution against the hire company, even though it was not one of their employees towing the hired trailer.

Fortunately, the business had Statutory Liability cover to help cover their defence costs.

Why Statutory Liability insurance is important

Whilst Statutory Liability insurance can’t pay any fines from a prosecution, it can cover your defence costs.

Even if the case is not complex, it can rack up hours and hours of legal costs.

Statutory Liability policies may also provide cover defence costs for alleged breaches of the HSWA by directors. However, it is important to review your policy to ensure this cover is in place.

In the event that a Statutory Liability policy does not cover the director(s) and officer(s), a Directors and Officers Liability policy can respond to the legal defence costs and reparation payments a director may face, if charged with a breach of the HSWA.

Legal support

If you need to make a claim against your Statutory Liability policy, you are often given access to legal support services through the insurer’s specialist legal panel.

Access to experienced and specialist barristers from these panels, who regularly fight these types of claims, can be instrumental in getting particular charges dropped and fines reduced.

In fact, if you go ahead and engage your own legal representation before engaging with the insurer, your legal costs may not be recoverable.

Tips for dealing with a work vehicle incident

• If you have an incident involving a work vehicle that results in a notifiable injury, death, or a ‘high-risk, near miss’, you must advise WorkSafe. If in doubt, it is better to do so than not.
• Contact your broker as soon as possible. We can take care of the claim relating to the vehicle and look at any potential liabilities.

Back up in the case of human error

Despite everyone’s best efforts, sometimes an incident will happen which is just the nature of humans making errors of judgement or simply having an accident.

While you can’t control these human interactions, you can have a backup in place for when things do go awry.

If you are carrying out any work, particularly high risk activities, statutory liability insurance should be a part of your insurance programme.

Have questions?

Want to know more about what your Statutory Liability covers or don’t have it? We can help explore the right options for your business.

Contact your broker or call us on 0800 644 444.