There are four primary types of claims that general liability insurance protects you against: advertising, bodily injury, personal injury and property damage. While any policy can be customized to cover you and your business against additional liabilities, these four will generally be the basis for coverage in any standard business liability insurance plan you purchase.
What Liability Insurance Protects You Against
In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at each of these types of claims and how to determine your company’s specific level of exposure to each of them. Analysis of each claim type follows.
Advertising Injury Claims
Courts have traditionally struggled to come to agreement on the exact definition of advertising injury as it relates to businesses, but most legal interpretations include damages caused by slander, libel, privacy violations, copyright infringement, and disparagement of goods, products or services. Commercial general liability insurance coverage is typically defined in a way that requires covered claims to stem from some type of advertising on the part of the insured.
Even if you do not run a business that conducts large-scale advertising campaigns, you may still become the target of an advertising injury claim. Case in point, making reference to a competitor’s product or service on your web site without authorization, or making less-than-flattering remarks about your competition to a customer can lead to an advertising injury claim just as easily as a television commercial.
If your business conducts any type of advertising that includes claims about its products or services in comparison to a competitor’s then you definitely need to look into acquiring advertising injury coverage as part of your general liability insurance policy.
Bodily Injury Claims
Accidents that cause visible physical harm to a customer or other third party can result in a bodily injury claim. In order for the incident to be covered by your business liability insurance, it must either occur at your place of business, or as a result of a negligent act committed by your or one of your employees in the course of conducting company business.
Common examples of accidents that result in bodily injury claims range from injuries caused to a third party in a traffic accident involving one of your employees, to someone falling down and suffering an injury while in your place of business. If you do business with third parties, these often-expensive claims come can from the most unlikely of sources.
Regardless of the type of business you operate, bodily injury coverage must be included in your insurance policy.
Personal Injury Claims
Unlike bodily injury claims, personal injury claims come from alleged damages caused to a third party that do not necessarily result in visible, physical harm. The most common types of personal injury claims are for libel, slander, or anything else that inflicts emotional pain and suffering.
Because this all-too-common type of claim can originate from so many different daily activities, it is almost impossible to protect your business against every conceivable exposure. Perhaps the most unsavory aspect to personal injury claims is that, regardless of whether the claim holds merit or not, they are always quite expensive to defend against.
Because every business from every industry involves some potential liability for personal injury claims, this coverage too is a universal requirement.
Property Damage
Property damage is the fourth type of coverage included in most commercial liability insurance policies. Any damage caused by negligence to a third party’s property by you or one of your employees is covered by commercial general liability.
Any type of business can be the target of a property damage claim, but this is particularly true of companies that deal heavily with the public. It is not unheard of for businesses to be sued for any damage that occurs to third party property on their premises (even if they are not directly responsible), so carrying property damage coverage is always a must.
One Last Thing that Liability Insurance Protects You Against
As technology becomes a bigger part of every business’ day-to-day activities, new types of liabilities are being created. For this reason, many insurance providers now offer the option to include cyber liability insurance as part of your standard policy, as well as several other types of technology-based coverage (eg Electronic Data Liability).
Originally posted 2011-11-08 07:22:02. Republished by Old Post Promoter
