General liability insurance
Coverwatch places general liability for contractors, restaurants, retailers, and service firms. We structure it to fit your contracts and respond when a claim lands, not just clear a landlord's checklist.
- ISO CG 00 01 the base form behind it
- $1M / $2M the common contract floor
- 60+ carriers shopped for your risk
At a glance
- What it covers
- Injury to other people, or damage to their property, caused by your business operations.
- What it doesn't
- Your own building, your own work product, and injuries to your own employees.
Trusted by 60+ carrier partners
What does general liability insurance cover?
General liability insurance covers third-party claims that your business operations caused bodily injury or property damage, plus personal and advertising injury like libel or slander. It pays the claimant and your legal defense. It does not cover your own building, your own work, or your employees' injuries.
How we get you covered
We take general liability insurance to 60+ markets, build it to fit your business, and keep it compliant.
Read your risk
We map what could actually go wrong in your operation, where a claim would come from, and who would bring it.
Shop 60+ markets
We take your risk to the carriers that know your class and make them compete on price and terms.
Build the endorsements
We add the endorsement wording that decides whether the policy responds to a claim, beyond the base form.
Keep you compliant
We handle the COIs, additional-insured certs, and renewals, so you are never the one chasing paperwork.
Who needs general liability
Nearly every business that interacts with the public or works on someone else's property carries general liability. What changes by industry is the severity, the exclusions to watch, and the limit your contracts will demand.
Contractors
Trades work on client property and at height, so bodily-injury and property-damage severity runs high and general contractors demand additional-insured plus completed-operations coverage.
General contractor
Carries the project and pushes additional-insured and waiver-of-subrogation requirements down to every subcontractor on the job.
Electrician
Fire and electrical-damage exposure, with completed-operations claims that surface long after the work is signed off.
Plumber
Water damage at a client site is a frequent property-damage claim, often well into five figures before defense.
HVAC
Install and service work on others' property, with both ongoing and completed-operations exposure on the same job.
Roofing
Work at height drives the highest bodily-injury severity in the trades, and carriers price it accordingly.
Landscaping
Property damage to client grounds, hardscape, and underground lines, plus public-facing slip exposure.
Restaurants
High public foot traffic makes slip-and-fall and customer-injury claims the core exposure, and venues that serve alcohol need separate liquor liability the GL policy excludes.
Fast food
High customer volume multiplies slip-and-fall and minor-injury frequency across every location.
Fine dining
Lower volume but higher claim values, with alcohol service driving the need for separate liquor liability.
Restaurant group
Multiple locations need a per-project or per-location aggregate so one claim does not drain the whole program.
Retail
Public-facing storefronts make customer slip-and-fall the primary claim, and landlords set the general liability minimums in nearly every retail lease.
What's covered, and what isn't
In the policy
Third-party bodily injury
A customer, vendor, or passerby is hurt by your operations or on your premises, like a slip-and-fall in your store. The policy pays their injury claim and your defense, this is Coverage A on the ISO form.
Third-party property damage
Your business damages someone else's property, like a contractor cracking a client's flooring or a pipe burst flooding the unit below. Their repair claim and your defense are covered under Coverage A.
Personal and advertising injury
Coverage B pays claims of libel, slander, copyright infringement in your advertising, or invasion of privacy. A competitor or person who says your ad or statement harmed them files here, and reputational claims are among the costliest.
Products-completed operations
Harm that surfaces after you finish a job or after your product ships and is in use. This is the part of general liability that follows your work into the field, with its own separate yearly aggregate.
Medical payments
Coverage C reimburses a third party's medical bills from a minor accident on your premises regardless of fault. It is a small good-faith limit that settles minor injuries fast, before they grow into a lawsuit.
Legal defense costs
The policy hires and pays lawyers to defend you even when the suit is groundless. Defense is paid on top of your limit, and for a contested liability claim it is often the single biggest cost before any settlement is reached.
Not in the policy
Professional advice or service mistakes
Errors in the advice, design, or service you sell, rather than physical harm from your operations. The professional services exclusion removes these claims from a general liability policy.
Covered by Professional Liability / E&O
Your own building and equipment
Damage to your own premises, inventory, tools, or gear is first-party loss. General liability pays others, not you, so your own property sits outside it.
Covered by Commercial Property
Injuries to your own employees
A worker hurt on the job is excluded outright. Their medical care and lost wages run through a separate statutory policy, not your liability coverage.
Covered by Workers Compensation
Accidents in owned or operated vehicles
Bodily injury or property damage from a car, truck, or other auto your business owns or operates is excluded. The road exposure needs its own policy.
Covered by Commercial Auto
A defective product you make or sell
While products-completed operations is part of general liability, brands with real distribution often need a policy built around the product, with category exclusions removed.
Covered by Product Liability
Claims above your policy limit
A judgment larger than your each-occurrence or aggregate limit leaves the excess on you. Liability over the primary policy is funded by a separate layer.
Covered by Commercial Umbrella
Claims general liability pays
Customer slip-and-fall injury
A customer slips on a wet floor or a loose mat in your store and is injured. The medical bills, the injury claim, and your legal defense run through Coverage A, and a contested case heads to settlement.
$20K–$75K+
Property damage at a client site
Working on a client's property, your business damages their building, flooring, or fixtures. The owner files for the repair cost and any consequential loss, and your defense is covered while liability is sorted out.
$10K–$100K+
Advertising or defamation claim
A competitor or individual alleges your ad, post, or statement defamed them or used their material without permission. Personal and advertising injury under Coverage B pays the claim and the defense.
$30K–$250K+
Completed-operations claim
Months after you finish a job, your work fails and injures someone or damages property. The products-completed operations grant responds, even though the project closed out long before the claim surfaced.
$50K–$500K+
Ranges are typical defense and settlement bands for these claim types, not a quote. Actual exposure depends on industry, operations, and limits.
How much coverage you need
There is no standard limit. Two things decide what you actually need, and you carry whichever is higher.
- Your largest contract's floor
- Landlords, general contractors, and clients will not sign until you carry their minimum. Most start at $1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate. Larger projects and tenants push past that, which is usually when an umbrella goes over your primary policy.
- What a claim in your work costs
- Severity sets the ceiling. A contractor working at height or a restaurant serving the public faces larger bodily-injury claims than a low-traffic office, so two firms at the same revenue can need very different limits. Size to a realistic worst case, not the average claim.
- Standard commercial lease
- $1M occ / $2M agg
- General contractor's subcontract
- $1M occ / $2M agg
- Municipal license or permit
- $1M / occ
The common floor a landlord sets before a tenant can sign, with the landlord named as additional insured and damage to premises rented set at the lease amount.
Plus additional-insured status for ongoing operations (ISO CG 20 10) and completed operations (CG 20 37), and a waiver of subrogation, before the sub starts work.
Many cities require proof of general liability at this level, often naming the city as additional insured, before issuing a business license or trade permit.
- Each occurrence
- $1,000,000
- General aggregate
- $2,000,000
- Products-completed ops aggregate
- $2,000,000
- Personal and advertising injury
- $1,000,000
- Damage to premises rented to you
- $100,000
- Medical payments
- $5,000
The most the policy pays for any single claim or incident. This is the number most lease and contract requirements set as their minimum.
The ceiling on everything the policy pays in one policy year, across every claim combined, except products-completed operations. Once it is used up, coverage is exhausted until renewal.
A separate yearly ceiling for claims from work you finished or products you sold that are now in use. It does not share the general aggregate, so a job-site claim does not erode your day-to-day limit.
A per-offense limit for libel, slander, copyright, and privacy claims under Coverage B. It is capped separately from bodily injury and property damage.
Covers fire and certain damage to a space you rent, like your leased storefront or office. A landlord often sets this floor in the lease.
A small no-fault limit that pays a third party's minor medical bills without a lawsuit. It settles small injuries early so they do not escalate into a claim.
Endorsements that close the gaps
The base form is the start. These add-ons are where the policy gets built to fit your business.
Additional insured, ongoing operations
CG 20 10Names the client, landlord, or general contractor as additional insured for work in progress, so they accept your certificate and let you start. CG 20 37 extends it to completed operations.
Waiver of subrogation
CG 24 04Stops your insurer from recovering against a contract partner after it pays a claim. General contractors and many leases require it as a condition of doing business.
Primary and noncontributory
Makes your policy pay first and not seek contribution from the client's own insurance. Construction and vendor contracts almost always demand this wording alongside additional-insured status.
Per-project aggregate
CG 25 03Gives each designated construction project its own general aggregate, so a claim on one project does not drain the limit protecting every other job you have open that year.
Questions buyers actually ask
General liability is not required by state law for most businesses the way workers compensation or commercial auto can be. It is required by contract. A commercial lease, a client services agreement, a general contractor's subcontract, and many municipal business licenses all set general liability minimums you must meet before you can sign, start the job, or open the doors. Some licensed trades and professions do carry a statutory liability requirement at the state or city level. So the honest answer is that almost every business with a lease, a client, or a permit ends up legally bound to carry general liability, even when no single statute names it directly.
General liability covers physical harm: a third party is injured or their property is damaged by your operations, like a customer slipping in your shop or a contractor cracking a client's floor. Professional liability, also called errors and omissions or E&O, covers financial harm from the advice or service you sell, like a mistake, a missed deadline, or a bad recommendation that costs a client money. The CGL professional services exclusion removes advice-based claims from a general liability policy, which is exactly the gap E&O fills. Consultants, accountants, designers, and other advisors usually carry both, because one defends the slip-and-fall and the other defends the lawsuit over their work.
General liability is a single coverage: third-party bodily injury, property damage, and personal and advertising injury. A business owners policy, or BOP, is a bundle that packages general liability together with commercial property, and sometimes business interruption, into one policy at a lower combined price. If you rent or own space and equipment, a BOP often makes sense because it covers both your liability to others and your own property. A standalone general liability policy fits when you have little property to insure, or when your contracts and operations need liability terms and limits that a packaged BOP does not flex enough to provide.
Two inputs set the number, and you carry the higher of the two. The first is your largest contract's minimum. Most leases, subcontracts, and client agreements begin at one million dollars per occurrence and two million aggregate, and that is the floor about nine in ten small businesses carry. The second is what a serious claim in your line of work could actually cost. A contractor working at height, or a restaurant serving the public, faces larger bodily-injury claims than a quiet office, so it should size higher. When a big tenant, a large project, or a major client pushes past your primary limit, the usual fix is a commercial umbrella layered over the general liability policy rather than a bigger primary.
No. Injuries to your own employees are excluded from a general liability policy outright. A worker hurt on the job has their medical care and lost wages paid through workers compensation, a separate and often legally mandated policy. General liability only responds to third parties: customers, clients, vendors, and members of the public, not your staff. This is one of the most common and costly gaps owners discover at claim time, because they assumed one liability policy covered everyone on site. It does not. If you have employees, you need general liability for the public and workers compensation for your team, and most states require the workers compensation policy by statute.
General liability has well-defined edges. It does not cover your own property, your own work product, or injuries to your own employees. It excludes professional advice and service mistakes, which need errors and omissions coverage. It excludes accidents in vehicles your business owns or operates, which need commercial auto. It excludes pollution, cyber and data-breach losses, and, for businesses that serve alcohol, liquor liability. It also stops at your policy limit, so a judgment larger than your each-occurrence or aggregate limit leaves the excess on you unless an umbrella sits above it. Reading these exclusions before a claim is how you find the gaps and fill them with the right sibling policy rather than at your own expense.
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