Commercial General Liability provides coverage for Bodily Injury and Property Damage arising from accidents on premises, business operations in progress, products manufactured or sold, and completed operations. Bodily Injury includes sickness or disease and death in addition to accidental injuries. Property Damage applies only to claims from damage to tangible property or loss of use of tangible property not damaged.
Premises and Operations: The Premises hazard exists when there is ownership or occupancy of property (the premises). For example, your customer may have a premises claim against your business if the newly waxed floors caused your customer to slip and fall.
The Operations hazard exists when activity in addition to occupancy of property exists. For example, a carpenter may be negligent and cut the electrical wiring, causing Property Damage to the building.
Products and Completed Operations: A products hazard arises from the manufacturing or selling of a product such as an air conditioner. For example, a compressor that you sold and installed for your client may have been defective and caused a fire damaging the building.
Completed Operations is a hazard that remains after the contractor has completed the job. In the air conditioner example above, if the compressor was improperly installed and later caused fire damage due to the improper installation, any resulting injuries or Property Damage would be said to emanate from the Completed Operations hazard.
Advertising Injury: This coverage includes libel or slander; invasion of privacy; misappropriation of advertising ideas or style of doing business; or infringement of copyright, title, or slogan, all in the course of advertising your goods or services. Depending on your operations your policy might exclude copyright infringement, this coverage can be purchased through a professional liability policy.
Fire Legal Liability: This coverage provides Property Damage coverage to property leased or rented to you. If you rent a building and by negligence on the part of your operations, fire damages the part of the building that is leased by you, Fire Legal Liability coverage limit would apply. Fire legal liability only pertains to the space you rent or lease. Once the fire leaves the area you rent or lease, any subsequent damage would be covered under the Per Occurrence Limit of your policy.
Premises Medical Payments: This coverage provides Medical Payments for persons, other than who is considered to be a Named Insured, for Bodily Injury suffered on the premises, even though you are not negligent. The difference between Medical Payments and Premises Liability is negligence. You do not need to be held negligent for the insurance company to pay a medical payment claim. This allows the company to pay small nuisance claims without the need for costly legal expenses.
The Commercial General Liability policy generally excludes claims arising from the rendering or the failure to render professional services, and most professional exposures are more appropriately covered by a separate policy. The Commercial General Liability policy will also not provide coverage and exclude claims against the following: Employment related incidents, Network Security or Data Breach incidents, an Employers liability for mismanagement of a pension, savings, profit-sharing, employee benefit and health and welfare plan.
“When discussing insurance with Mark he was able to provide me detailed information that I could easily understand, a far greater service level that what I had previously experienced. After deciding to partner with Mark he was able to lower my rates and increase my coverage. It is clear to me that Mark is a person of principles and values who works hard to ensure his clients are taken care of.”
- Rob C
