How to Protect Your Small Business from Liability

Business · A certificate does not add a coverage

General liability pays other people’s injuries and their property. It does not insure your building, your advice, your employees’ injuries, or a car you never scheduled.

General liability is third-party bodily injury and property damage arising out of the business. A customer who slips, or a job that damages someone else’s wall, is the kind of claim it is built for. It does not pay to rebuild your own shop, it does not pay a client who says your advice cost them money, and it does not pay an investor dispute. Professional liability, also called errors and omissions, is the policy for the advice. Directors and officers coverage is not general liability either. A business owners policy often packages general liability with property. That package is still only what the form lists.

A certificate of insurance shows what is already on the policy. It does not add an insured. A landlord or a general contractor who wants to be an additional insured needs an endorsement. The certificate, by itself, does not do that. A commercial umbrella or excess policy pays only after the underlying limit is used up, and only for a loss the underlying form covered. A personal umbrella is not this policy. Employees hurt on the job are a workers’ compensation question, not a general-liability claim, and a homeowners policy does not replace that. A personal auto policy does not cover a truck hauling for hire, and hired and non-owned auto is a separate endorsement for employees using their own cars. It is not implied. A contract that asks for a million dollars of liability is a contract, not a statute.

The product page: business insurance. How general liability and professional liability differ, written around Colorado but the split is the same idea: general liability and professional liability. Higher limits: excess versus umbrella and umbrella. The piece of paper people ask for: certificates of insurance. The truck: Texas commercial auto. Employees, on a page written for Colorado businesses: workers’ compensation. A short video set: Texas commercial insurance videos.

Match the contract’s limit to an endorsement, not to a sentence on a certificate. Ask an agent or get a quote.