General liability

General liability insurance, also known as business liability insurance or commercial general liability insurance, covers small businesses for bodily injury and property damage claims. It also helps protect the business against what's known as "reputational damage."

In a nutshell, general liability insurance covers business owners for the things they never expect to happen … but often do.

Did you know?

According to Forbes, “a slip and fall claim costs an average of $20,000.” And while the cost of getting sued is difficult to generalize, you can expect it to start in the tens of thousands and go up from there.

General liability insurance can help protect a business from a wide range of costly damages, including:

What’s covered by general liability insurance?

Bodily injury

Covers medical costs if someone, other than an employee, is injured at the place of business.

Reputational Harm

Helps cover financial losses due to negative press. It could also help cover sales losses resulting from a tarnished brand image.

Property Damage

Helps pay to repair or replace a customer's property if it's damaged either at the place of business or by an employee at the customer's home.

Advertising Injury

Helps protect a business if their advertising causes financial damage to another business or individual.

Copyright Infringement

Covers legal costs if a business is accused of using someone else's work without permission.

At its simplest, general liability insurance helps cover medical and legal expenses that might occur as the result of a covered loss. 

Say a customer tripped over a fallen cord and broke their wrist in a small hardware store. General liability would step in to help cover the associated medical costs. It would also help pay for legal expenses if that customer sued. 

Or, say an online ad for a nail salon accidentally used an unlicensed image of a model and that model sued for copyright infringement. Once again, business liability insurance would come to the rescue, helping to pay for any legal and court costs.

How does general liability insurance work?

General liability insurance will typically include an occurrence limit and an aggregate limit. If the limits are listed as $1M/$2M, for example, this means:

  • The insurer will pay up to $1 million to cover any single claim (or occurrence) while the policy is active.

  • The insurer will pay up to $2 million to cover all (or aggregate) claims during the lifetime of the policy, which is usually one year.

What are the limits on general liability insurance?

Although not required in most states, general liability insurance helps protect small businesses against disastrous financial events. 

A business that does any of the following should consider buying liability insurance:

  • Provides products or services that require employees to be on a customer's property

  • Has a brick-and-mortar location that customers, clients or vendors might step foot on

  • Creates advertisements or uses social media

From small downtown boutiques to large-scale construction companies, general liability insurance is designed to give business owners peace of mind that they'll be covered if the unexpected – or unthinkable – happens.

Who needs general liability insurance?

Let us help you protect customers with general liability insurance.

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