Can Insurance Help With An ADA Website Claim?
To answer the question outlined above, the answer is “Yes.” But, at the same time, the answer is also “No.”
Yes, an insurance policy – specifically, an employment practice liability insurance – can assist in defending against an ADA website claim and dealing with the costs that come from dealing with this claim.
But, there’s a problem, and this problem is as follows: these types of insurance policies are, traditionally, for cases that involve wrongful claims that are not based on the facts of your website.
Just as an example, if your website is ADA accessible, then insurance can help you defend against this wrongful claim and ensure that, in doing so, you do not suffer a significant financial loss.
If your website is not, in fact, ADA accessible, then it is likely that your insurance policy will be less-than-useful in this regard, leading to a variety of consequences that must be dealt with.
To properly deal with these consequences, you must speak with an ADA accessibility lawyer and then – or, ideally, before you even receive a claim – make the necessary changes to your website.
Making Your Website ADA Accessible
Every website must be accessible to disabled people. And, while the exact rules regarding this accessibility can be unclear, the Department of Justice frequently refers to a specific set of web content accessibility guidelines that were published by the Web Accessibility Initiative.
The web content accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative are as follows:
-Your website must be operable to those who are disabled.
-Your website must be understandable to those who are disabled.
-Your website must be perceivable to those who are disabled.
-Your website must be robust and, as such, capable of working with assistive technologies.
Just as an example, if your website supports assistive technologies and also offers text, video, and audio formats that allow the content on your website to be understood, then it meets the last two items.
Regarding the first two items, your website must support navigation with just a keyboard, as well as navigation that occurs with just a mouse. Your website must be formatted in a manner that anyone can understand.
If your website meets this criteria, then it is ADA accessible. You can receive an ADA website accessibility claim, but it will have little basis due to your website meeting the criteria outlined earlier.
