The Exclusions Within General Liability Insurance Policies
When you buy a general liability insurance policy for your business, you want to know what it will cover. However, you’ll also want to know what it doesn’t. What are some of the most-common excluded items within general liability policies?
General liability insurance is not all-inclusive coverage. Often, you can receive extra help from other liability policies, however. Other accidents will have no coverage at all.
Exclusions Within General Liability Policies
Most commercial general liability insurance (CGL) will come with two types of coverage.
- Property Damage Liability coverage will pay for damage the business causes to someone else’s property.
- Bodily Injury Liability insurance will pay for another person’s physical harm.
Some policies will contain other coverage. However, most standard general liability policies will not cover certain incidents. Policies might not apply to:
- Losses to assets owned by the business.
- Injuries that employees sustain on the job.
- Allegations of libel, slander or advertising injury against a competitor.
- Bodily harm or property damage you cause others while driving a business vehicle.
- Instances of cyber theft or data breaches that affect customers.
- Lawsuits that specifically target a business’ directors or principals’ personal assets.
- Illegal or criminal actions the business takes against other parties.
- Reasonably-preventable or avoidable damage to others.
Covering These Risks
In some cases, a pure general liability insurance policy might not apply to a claim you want to make. However, other liability policies might. That’s why you will likely need more than one.
There is a wide market of additional liability policies on the market. These might include:
- Cyber liability
- Errors & omissions (E&O)
- Directors & officers (D&O)
- Personal injury
- Advertising injury
Not only that, you’ll probably need a variety of other types of insurance altogether.
- Employee injuries might qualify for workers compensation insurance, not liability coverage. You usually must carry workers compensation insurance by law.
- Damage to the business itself will likely need coverage under property insurance.
- Claims arising from car wrecks might have coverage on your business auto insurance. These policies will almost always contain liability coverage.
- Some liability costs will exceed the limits of your existing liability policies. Umbrella liability insurance might cover the outstanding costs that your existing coverage won’t. Some will cover liabilities not insured by other policies as well.
Illegal actions, in the vast majority of cases, will not have any coverage under any type of insurance. However, that does not mean that you will not have to repay another party for their losses.
Contact us to determine the right course when insuring commercial liabilities. We can help you determine what your CGL coverage will insure, and for what risks you might need other coverage.