General Liability – What is General Liability, Who Needs It, What does it Cover?

A form of Insurance designed to protect Owners and Operators’ businesses from a wide variety of liability exposures.  These exposures could include liability arising out of accidents resulting from the premises or the operations of an insured, products sold by the insured, operations completed by the insured, and contractual liability.

General Liability insurance is the first major layer of protection for claims of bodily injury or property damage against your business.  General Liability covers you, but it also covers many others involved in your business, such as:

  • If you have a joint venture or partnership, all of your partners, members and their spouses are protected if they are sued for something they do in an official capacity related to your business
  • If your business is a corporation, your policy covers all of your business executive officers, stockholders and directors while they are acting in their official capacities
  • If you have subsidiaries, your policy liability coverage extends to any subsidiary where you own at least 50 percent of the stock
  • Your employees are also protected from claims that result from actions they take in their capacity as employees.
  • If you have a written agreement to indemnify a person or organization, such as a vendor, that person or organization would be protected against liability claims for property damage or bodily injury as a result of selling or distributing your products
  • Anyone legally associated with your business, including volunteers working under your direction, are covered for liabilities that result from the work they do for you, and for the use or maintenance of your property that is in their care

What GL Insurance Provides

  • Bodily Injury
    – Covers Medical Costs
    – Loss Of Services
    – Court Awarded Compensation for deaths that result form Injury.
  • Property Damage
    – Physical damage to the property or
    – Loss of use of the property

Coverages

General Aggregate – limit that will be paid during any one policy period.
Occurrence – limit for the sum of damages and medical expenses because of all bodily injury and property damages arising out of any one occurrence.
Products & Completed Operations Aggregate –  limit for damages because of bodily injury and property damage.
Personal & Advertising Injury – limit for the sum of all damages because of all  personal and advertising injury sustained by any one person or organization.
Damage to Rented Premises – limit for damages because of property damage to any one premises while rented to you, or in the case of fire, while rented to you or occupied by you with permission of the owner.
Medical Expenses – limit for all medical expenses because of bodily injury sustained by any one person.

Rating

There are four main ways to rate General Liability:

  • Trucker’s Payroll
  • Gross Receipts
  • Number of Units
  • Area (square feet)

Excess Liability

  • Insurance that is excess over any other insurance, whether it is primary, excess, contingent or on any other basis.
  • Fire, Extended Coverage, Builder’s Risk, Installation Risk or similar coverage for your work
  • Fire insurance for premises rented to you or temporarily occupied by you with permission of the owner
  • Insurance purchased by you to cover your liability as a tenant for property damage to premises rented to you or temporarily occupied by you with   permission of the owner

When this insurance is excess, there will be no duty to defend the insured against any suit if any provider of other insurance has a duty to defend the insured against that suit. If no provider of other insurance defends, we will undertake to do so, but we will be entitled to the insured’s rights against all those providers of other insurance.

  • When this insurance is excess over other insurance, we will pay only our share of the amount of the loss, if any, that exceeds the sum of:
  • The total amount that all such other insurance would pay for the loss in the absence of this insurance
  • The total of all deductible and self-insured amounts under all such other insurance.
  • We will share the remaining loss, if any, with any other insurance that is not described in this Excess Insurance provision.