General Liability

Empower yourself with the language of insiders. We decipher the arcane terms, epigrammatic abbreviations, and weird words used in the industry.

Alternative Risk Funding
Alternative risk funding insurance is a method of self-insurance. It finances risk exposure alternatively to the traditional approach, with insurance companies collecting premiums and assuming the risk. Instead, the insured party assumes a significant portion of its own risk.

Aviation
Aviation insurance is coverage that is related to aircraft. It can include liability coverage, accident insurance for any aircraft passengers, or coverage of the actual aircraft and its contents.

Auto Insurance (aka Fleet Insurance)
Auto insurance for businesses functions similarly to personal auto insurance, providing coverage for injury, damage, or theft. It's often wise to have coverage even if you have no company-owned vehicles, in case you or an employee is involved in an accident while driving a personal or rental car while on company business.

Boiler & Machinery
Boiler and Machinery insurance insures boilers, machinery, and electrical equipment when they break down or fail. This coverage includes the damage actually suffered by the equipment and extends to damage the equipment may have inflicted on other property. Some business interruption insurance is often included in this coverage.

Business Interruption
Business Interruption insurance is a type of property insurance related to a business's inability to function due to losses incurred by covered perils like fire, storm damage, vandalism, etc. It provides compensation for lost income, ongoing expenses like rent, and the costs of setting up a temporary facility.

Commercial Crime
Commercial Crime insurance is a type of crime/fidelity insurance that covers the cost of losses arising from employees' dishonest or fraudulent acts such as forgery, burglary, computer fraud, and extortion.

Comprehensive General Liability
The CGL covers four types of injuries: bodily injury that results in actual physical damage or loss, property damage or loss, personal injury, and advertising injury.

Construction Risks
Construction risks insurance provides job-specific insurance coverage for buildings under construction during a contracted job.

Directors & Officers (D&O)
Directors & Officers (D & O) insurance is a type of liability insurance. It provides coverage for directors and officers of a firm in the event they are faced with a claim filed against them personally by stockholders, employees, competitors, creditors, or other third parties because of financial damage or loss.

Environmental/Pollution
Environmental/pollution insurance is a type of liability and property insurance that covers a multitude of environmental risks, many of which could easily exceed the cost of a business's assets. Coverage can include liability for asbestos and lead paint or for unknowingly buying environmentally unsafe property; errors and omissions for environmental contractors; property for third-party bodily injury or property damage; or liability for cleanup for pollution caused by product failure (tanks, pipes, etc.)

Errors & Omissions (E&O)
Errors & Omissions insurance handles claims regarding your company's failure to provide an adequate level of professional service.

Fidelity/Bonding
Fidelity/bonding insurance protects employers from employees' dishonesty, infidelity, or fraudulent acts. It particularly pertains to businesses where employees have regular access to money.

Fire
Fire insurance is provides liability and property coverage for fire damage. It can often be combined in a policy with other risks, including theft and floods or storms although fire resulting from an earthquake is typically excluded. It can cover loss of earnings, the cost to rent new or temporary property, or property damage (unless the lost items are of significantly high value, like antiques and jewelry, which must be insured separately).

Fleet Insurance (aka Auto Insurance)
Auto insurance for businesses functions similarly to personal auto insurance, providing coverage for injury, damage, or theft. It's often wise to have coverage even if you have no company-owned vehicles, in case you or an employee is involved in an accident while driving a personal or rental car while on company business.

Ocean/Marine
Ocean marine insurance is a type of transportation insurance that covers loss or damage related to products in transit on sea vessels. It can be liability insurance or property insurance covering the actual vessel, the cargo, and financial loss.

Product-related
Product-related insurance covers manufacturers or sellers' liability for losses or injuries to a buyer, user or bystander caused by a defect or malfunction of their product. (When part of a commmercial general liability policy, it's often known as products-completed operations insurance.)

Professional Liability
Claims regarding your company's failure to provide an adequate level of professional service are handled by errors and omissions (E&O) insurance.

Property & Casualty
Property & casualty insurance provides protection against loss of or damage to property, or against physical injury to others.

Self-insurance
Self-insurance is used when a firm assumes the risk of all or a portion of their own losses. It is often used with employee health insurance, workers' compensation, and automobile insurance. Businesses choosing to self-insure will typically reserve funds for claims but purchase additional insurance in excess of these funds in the event of a catastrophe. While it potentially saves money by eliminating premium taxes and avoiding the overhead of the middleman, it requires more administration and more up-front assets to establish.

Umbrella
Umbrella insurance policies provide additional liability coverage above and beyond the limits of coverage as stipulated in your main policy.

Workers' compensation
Workers' compensation insurance is used when an employee collects benefits for job-related injuries.