| Pages in topic: < [1 2] | If this were a translation mistake, would the translator be liable? Thread poster: Álvaro Espantaleón Moreno
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Angela Malik 
United Kingdom
Local time: 04:28
German to English
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| Insurance requirement and fine print | Sep 18, 2015 |
Jeff Whittaker wrote:
There was a case involving translation liability insurance (I believe it was the one that used to be sold by the ATA - they use a different company now) wherein the policy states that any interaction with the client to resolve the dispute nullifies the insurance coverage.
In other words, each and every time a customer has a dispute, you must immediately file the claim with the insurance company. Any attempt to negotiate with the client, correct the error, etc. violates that clause and negates the coverage.
My fine print says no such thing. Obviously it is always a good idea to read the fine print for anything before signing on the dotted line or, in the case of insurance, before assuming you are covered for whatever it is you want to be covered for.
Henry Hinds wrote:
Thus, professional liability insurance appears to be totally unnecessary.
Professional liability insurance may be unnecessary in the sense that it is highly unlikely that you will ever be sued for a translation error; it is indeed a rare occurrence. However, depending on legal requirements and terms and conditions, having professional liability insurance may be one of the criteria for membership to certain organisations, or for having certain types of bank accounts, or even for being a certain type of legal entity.
My policy actually includes things like legal advice and debt collection support, cases where you yourself may need to sue, and not just cases where someone may be suing you.
| | | | | Who's your insurer Angela? | Sep 18, 2015 |
I would like to check some policies and see if they are worth it.
| | | | Samuel Murray
Netherlands
Local time: 05:28
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
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| Angela's insurance | Sep 18, 2015 |
Angela Rimmer wrote:
My fine print says no such thing.
Do you mind sharing your insurance's fine print with us? I assume you did not sign an NDA with the insurer (-:
Obviously it is always a good idea to read the fine print for anything before signing on the dotted line...
The problem is that these pit falls are often couched in words that lawyers understand in one way but which we mere morals mistakenly think means something else. Insurance companies also employ tactics that they know will have a certain outcome (because they have experience) but in which you don't know the outcome and thus acts in a way that benefits the insurer without knowing it.
For example, some insurance policies state that the insurer is not liable for any compensation that you agreed to "voluntarily". So this often happens: the client demands $1 million, but the insurer offers to pay only $500 000. You now have a choice -- either accept the insurer's offer of $500 000 and pay the rest of the $1 million out of your own pocket, or reject the client's demand. You don't have $500 000, so you reject the demand, and the case goes to court. The case drags out, you are practically bankrupt from all the legal fees, and eventually there are settlement talks. During the settlement talks, the client offers to demand only $500 000, which was the insurer's original offer, and you (thinking that this is a legal procedure) agrees to it. The insurer then pays nothing, because you were not required (legally speaking) to accept the settlement. After months of legal wrangling, it may have appeared to you that the settlement was forced upon you, but technically speaking you should have fought the client until the bitter end, even after you were utterly in debt and practically bankrupt, until a judge specifically ordered you to pay, and only then would the insurer have paid. The insurer is hoping, by initially offering too little, that you'll make this mistake, several months down the line. Having read the fine print would not have protected you from this.
| | | | Sheila Wilson
Spain
Local time: 04:28
Member (2007)
English
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| The problem I found | Sep 18, 2015 |
Angela Rimmer wrote:
Obviously it is always a good idea to read the fine print for anything before signing on the dotted line or, in the case of insurance, before assuming you are covered for whatever it is you want to be covered for.
I took out a policy in France and paid the premium for several years, happily without needing to claim. It wasn't until I moved to Spain and started searching for a new insurer that I discovered that I had never been insured at all when working with clients outside France. Seeing that I often do monolingual English work, over 50% of my clients were actually excluded from the policy. About as useful a policy as a chocolate teapot, in other words . I found the same would be true of insurance here and, as I'd never had a Spanish client at the time, any policy clearly wasn't going to be worth the paper it was written on.
Does yours cover the entire world? I've heard that many so-called "international" ones actually exclude the US - where the majority of claims are contested.
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| When is one covered? | Sep 18, 2015 |
When I looked into the matter of professional liability insurance in the UK a few years ago and studied some sample policies, it seemed that a translator would be covered only if, as soon as he/she was in the slightest doubt about any terminology, etc. he/she would have to have informed the client immediately in writing or no subsequent claim would be entertained.
Considering how regularly translators are confronted by small shreds of doubt, I felt that such policies might well be useless ... See more When I looked into the matter of professional liability insurance in the UK a few years ago and studied some sample policies, it seemed that a translator would be covered only if, as soon as he/she was in the slightest doubt about any terminology, etc. he/she would have to have informed the client immediately in writing or no subsequent claim would be entertained.
Considering how regularly translators are confronted by small shreds of doubt, I felt that such policies might well be useless in practice, so I didn't pursue the matter. ▲ Collapse
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Perhaps they've become a little less biased in recent years or maybe I'm just lucky with the Traflagar policy (through CIoL) but the traps mentioned above do not appear to figure in mine. There is perhaps one ambiguous "This...." at the start of a sentence which might make for a couple of entertaining days in the Supreme Court, but let's face it, if it got that far, what else would I have to do with my time?
And yes, it also says you can't attempt to settle without clearing it with ... See more Perhaps they've become a little less biased in recent years or maybe I'm just lucky with the Traflagar policy (through CIoL) but the traps mentioned above do not appear to figure in mine. There is perhaps one ambiguous "This...." at the start of a sentence which might make for a couple of entertaining days in the Supreme Court, but let's face it, if it got that far, what else would I have to do with my time?
And yes, it also says you can't attempt to settle without clearing it with them first. Seems reasonable, if you're expecting them to cover your arse. ▲ Collapse
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