Commercial General Liability Insurance
An Introduction to Commercial General Liability Insurance
Commercial General Liability Insurance policy is extraordinarily broad. For a variety of small and medium sized businesses and ventures, it insures against liability for bodily injury, property damage as well as personal and advertising injury liability. The broad nature of the Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy eliminates the need to select and group particular hazards, and the inevitable coverage gaps that might occur.
Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies is offered either under a occurrence basis or under a claims-made basis. It is also offered as a monoline – single – policy, or it can be combined with other insurance coverages in a Commercial Package Policy (CPP).
A Named Insured small or medium sized business’ basic exposures that the Commercial General Liability (CGL) insures include:
- ownership, Maintenance or use of the small business’ premises;
- operations conducted or performed both on and off the small business’ premises;
- written contracts;
- products manufactured, sold, and/or distributed;
- completed operations;
- personal injury;
- advertising injury; and
- medical payments on the premises or work-sites – regardless of fault.
Each of these types of coverage are subject to the definitions, exclusions and limitation outlined in the policy.
Occurrence Basis versus Claims-Made Basis with Commercial General Liability Insurance
An Occurrence Policy
A Occurrence Basis policy covers liability or damage claims that occur during the policy period. This is regardless of when the insurance carrier is notified of the claim of loss. Here the date of loss is most important.
A Claims Made Policy
A Claims-Made policy is different. With a claims-made policy, coverage is triggered by the actual filing date or receipt of the claim, in addition to the date of the occurrence. It covers any claim filed during the policy period, regardless of the date of occurrence, subject to a retroactive date on the Declarations Page of the policy. The retroactive date should be the first day that claims made coverages applies to the insured. Claims-made only applies to occurrences taking place after the retroactive date.
Endorsements Make Commercial Liability Insurance Tailor Made Coverage
Commercial General Liability (CGL) policies offer a variety of endorsements to tailor your small businesses coverage to its particular needs. Some of these endorsements are required for specific types of businesses, while others are optional and allow the small business and their broker to tailor their coverage to their needs and desires. Basically, an endorsement broadens, restricts, deletes, modifies or adds coverage to a existing Commercial General Liability (CGL) policy.
