The Things That General Liability Protects You Against
General liability insurance protects you against four main types of claims: property damage, bodily injury, personal injury and advertising injury (e.g. libel). Although these four types of exposure are included in every business liability insurance policy, it is possible to add protection against additional liabilities where necessary.
What Liability Insurance Protects You Against
This article reviews the four claims mentioned above and provides a brief guide on how to determine what your business’ exposure is to each. A review of each follows.
Advertising Injury Claims
Although there has been disagreement over the legal definition of advertising, most courts do define advertising injury as damages inflicted through copyright infringement, disparagement of goods or services, libel, privacy violations and slander. 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.
Contrary to what many business owners believe, it is possible to be the subject of an advertising injury claim even if your company does not do much advertising. Some of the most-frequently filed advertising injury claims stem from activities such as making a disparaging remark about a competitor’s service or unauthorized use of a photo or reference to a competitor’s product in an advertisement.
Regardless of the amount of advertising your business does, if you ever makes public claims or comments about your competitors (even if it is just comparing your product or service to theirs), then you need to include advertising injury insurance in your general liability 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.
For all of the aforementioned reasons, bodily injury coverage as an absolutely essential component in any business insurance policy.
Personal Injury Claims
Personal injury claims differ from bodily injury claims in that they do not require visible, physical harm to have occurred to the third party filing the lawsuit. The most common types of personal injury claims are for libel, slander, or anything else that inflicts emotional pain and suffering.
As one might guess, this type of claim is common and can be caused by a wide range of incidents. Disgruntled former employees, unhappy customers and any number of other victims represent the most likely plaintiffs and, even in cases where the charges hold no merit (i.e. frivolous lawsuits) the legal fees associated with defending against them can be quite high.
In short, much like bodily injury, personal injury insurance is an absolute necessity for every business regardless of their industry and level of interaction with the public.
Property Damage
The last of the four main types of claims covered by general liability insurance is property damage. Your commercial GLI covers damage caused to third parties and their property by negligence on the part of you or your agents.
Again, property damage claims are a relatively common occurrence for most types of businesses that have a high level of exposure to the public. Something as innocent as a fender bender between two customers in your parking lot can potentially result in a property damage claim against your business, so this is definitely another area where you are better off carrying coverage regardless of your business’ location, industry, etc.
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. In order to protect against some of these new exposures, most insurance companies now give businesses the option of adding cyber liability insurance to their standard policy.
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