General Liability Insurance
Third-party bodily injury, property damage, and personal/advertising injury arising from your premises, operations, products, and completed work.
Who Needs It
- Any business with a location customers visit
- Contractors and service businesses working at client sites
- Anyone required by a lease, contract, or license to show a certificate
- Product sellers and manufacturers
What It Covers
- Bodily injury and property damage to third parties
- Products and completed operations
- Personal and advertising injury (libel, slander, copyright in ads)
- Medical payments regardless of fault
- Defense costs, usually outside the limit
- Additional insured, primary/non-contributory, and waiver endorsements when your contracts require them
What It Does Not Cover
- Your own property and your employees' injuries (property and workers' comp)
- Professional errors (E&O)
- Auto liability (commercial auto)
- Pollution, most cyber, and liquor liability without endorsements
- Contractual liability beyond an 'insured contract'
- Punitive damages in most states
Texas Notes
Not legally required, but demanded by nearly every commercial contract and lease. Contractor forms in Texas frequently carry classification limitations (height, residential, roofing) that narrow coverage; read the endorsements, not just the limits.
Florida Notes
Contractor licensing boards require proof of GL before a license issues. Florida's litigation climate and assignment-of-benefits history push carriers toward stricter forms and higher umbrella needs.
General Liability Insurance Questions We Hear Most
What limits do I need?
$1M per occurrence / $2M aggregate is the standard contract requirement. Project owners and lenders often require $5M+ total, reached with an umbrella.
Does GL cover my work if it fails later?
Products/completed operations covers resulting damage from finished work, not the cost to redo the defective work itself.
Does a prior claim mean I can't get coverage?
Rarely. Carriers price and underwrite on frequency and severity over three to five years. One closed claim usually narrows the market slightly; a pattern narrows it a lot. Tell us everything up front; an undisclosed claim found at binding is worse than a disclosed one.
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Start My Quote All coverage guides →This guide is general education from a licensed independent agency, not legal advice or a promise of coverage. Every policy is governed by its own forms, endorsements, limits, and exclusions. Ask us to review the actual form before you rely on it.