Employment claims are filed quickly. Your defense starts the day the EEOC letter arrives.
Employment practices liability protects employers from claims by current, former, and prospective employees alleging wrongful termination, discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and wage and hour violations. EPLI claims have grown faster than nearly any other liability line, and the defense costs alone — even on a meritless complaint — routinely run into five and six figures.
Most EPLI programs aren’t underpriced. They’re under-built. Wage and hour exclusions, sublimited third-party coverage for customer harassment claims, narrow definitions of insured persons, and missing prior acts language — these gaps are common, and they don’t surface until a charge has already been filed.
At Avanti Group, we run a Business Risk Diagnostic™ before we build any EPLI submission. We map your workforce, your HR practices, your turnover patterns, and your specific exposures — and make sure the policy actually responds to the claim scenarios most likely to arise in your business.
Who We Work With
We place EPLI programs for businesses across Iowa and the Midwest, including:
- Restaurants and hospitality with high-turnover, tipped workforces
- Healthcare facilities and medical practices
- Construction and trades businesses with field employees
- Manufacturers and distributors
- Retail and e-commerce operations
- Professional services firms
- Property management and habitational accounts
- Nonprofits and faith-based organizations
The Coverage Lines That Matter Most
A complete EPLI program has both core coverage and important endorsements. The components we evaluate and place include:
- Wrongful Termination — claims alleging termination in violation of contract, public policy, or anti-discrimination statutes
- Discrimination — race, sex, age, disability, religion, national origin, pregnancy, and other protected-class claims
- Harassment — sexual harassment and hostile work environment claims, including third-party harassment from customers or vendors
- Retaliation — claims alleging adverse action after an employee complaint, EEOC charge, or whistleblower disclosure
- Wage & Hour Defense — sublimited defense coverage for FLSA, state wage law, and misclassification claims
- Third-Party EPLI — harassment and discrimination claims by customers, vendors, or other non-employees
- FLSA & ERISA Endorsements — specific coverage for federal employment statutes that vary by carrier and form
The Risks Most EPLI Programs Miss
Wage and hour claims are routinely excluded or sublimited. Misclassification, off-the-clock work, and overtime claims have produced some of the largest employment settlements in recent years. Most EPLI policies exclude these or cap defense costs at a fraction of what’s needed.
Third-party EPLI is frequently missing. A customer who alleges harassment by an employee, or an employee who alleges harassment by a customer, may not be covered without a third-party EPLI endorsement. We make sure this is in the program for any customer-facing business.
Prior acts coverage is rarely scrutinized. EPLI is written on a claims-made basis with a retroactive date. If the retro date isn’t set correctly, claims arising out of pre-policy conduct may not be covered — even if the claim itself is filed during the policy period.
Defense outside the limit vs. inside the limit changes everything. Some EPLI policies erode the limit with defense costs; others provide defense outside the limit. For an employment matter that drags on for months, the structure significantly affects what’s left for indemnity.
How to Get Started
EPLI isn’t a commodity product. The right program depends on your workforce size, your industry, your turnover patterns, and your HR practices. We need to understand your business before we can build the right program for it.
Call our office or use the button below to start a conversation. We’ll review your current program, identify any gaps, and let you know exactly where you stand before we ever go to market.