General liability insurance protects a company’s assets when it is facing a lawsuit for damages it may or may not have inflicted upon a person though injury or property damage. General liability insurance can be bought independently or as part of a BOP (Business Owners Policy). A Business Owners Policy packs liability and property insurance into a single policy. The liability insurance coverage limits, however, are usually quite low. Businesses needing a greater coverage usually buy liability insurance as an independent policy.

In a general liability insurance policy, legal costs of a business in a covered liability lawsuit have to be paid by the insurer. Covered liability claims include property damage, bodily injury, personal injury and damages from false advertising, also called advertising injury. Insurance companies also cover general and compensatory damages. However, liability insurance policies do not cover punitive damages, as they are deemed punishment for deliberate actions.

General liability insurance policies always declare a maximum amount that insurers have to give during the policy period. Under the policy, there is also a maximum amount that the insurer has to pay per occurrence. For example, if a company has a $1.5 million occurrence cap and loses a lawsuit of $2 million; the insurance company is obligated to pay just the $1.5 million; the rest has to be paid by the business company.

As a cover against these types of circumstances, companies buy umbrella liability insurance, which comes into the picture where general liability coverage stops. It covers payments that go beyond the company’s policy’s limits and gives extra protection for liabilities not covered in the standard insurance policy.

Generally, there is a requirement for the policyholders to report to the insurance company as soon as an accident that can lead to a liability claim has taken place. The business owner will then have to help in the investigations, forward legal notices, etc.

Medical professional liability insurance is another name for medical malpractice insurance. There are two types of medical professional liability insurance, claims-made and occurrence policies. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of these types of policies.

Claims-made medical professional liability insurance policies are one year long policies that are renewed each year without interrupting the coverage. Any claims made during the claims-made policy period will be covered, no matter when the incidence actually occurred, as long as the incident occurred after the original purchase of the claims-made policy. This means coverage is retroactive back to the first policy. This type of medical professional liability insurance is cheaper in the first few years of coverage as it is less likely claims will be made in the first few years of coverage. Premiums increase each year up to five years, when the reach the approximate cost of the occurrence policies. Occurrence medical professional liability insurance covers all claims that occur during the coverage period, regardless of when the claim is made. Because there is no way of knowing how many claims will eventually be made due to actions occurring any given year, the premiums for occurrence medical professional liability insurance are not necessarily cheaper in the beginning like they are with claims-made medical professional liability policies. This type of insurance covers the doctor forever against claims that result from the period in which the policy was in effect. Both of these forms of medical professional liability insurance are very expensive, so there are currently a lot of organizations working on proposals to solve the problem of compensating any patients with legitimate medical malpractice claims without doctors having to pay huge premiums for medical professional liability insurance.