WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2020
General liability insurance covers three main areas for businesses: bodily injury, property injury and personal and advertising injury. This third type of coverage is perhaps the one most commonly forgotten and misunderstood. 
Personal and advertising injury covers primarily non-physical injury another person or business may suffer due to your business’ everyday operations. This coverage covers claims concerning:
Most of these apply to many businesses, but some apply to specific situations. Wrongful eviction, for example, primarily applies to issues between landlords and their tenants. A tenant who feels they have been wrongly evicted may file a lawsuit against their landlord. This coverage provides compensation for legal expenses related to such a lawsuit.
Who Needs Personal and Advertising Injury?
Every business needs general liability insurance, and this includes personal and advertising injury. These type of claims don’t only come from clients. They can also come from other businesses. For example, say you are just starting your cupcake business. You and an advertising consultant decide on a logo for your business and have it commissioned.
A week later, a bakery in the next city specializing in cake gives you notice of a claim for copyright infringement. You look and find that your logo is very similar to theirs in design even though the colors are different.
General liability can help cover the legal costs associated with this dispute, including defense costs, court fees and settlement expenses.
So no matter what you business’ industry, you could face a range of expensive lawsuits concerning personal or advertising injury.
Another example of a covered accusation is that of malicious prosecution. Say you run a retail store, primarily selling clothes. You have a frequent customer who you believe has been shoplifting, but you haven’t been able to find proof. One day, they come in and you think you see them take something off the shelf and stuff it in their purse.
You confront them, frustrated and angry. They deny stealing anything and the argument grows into yelling as you both insist you are right. You have security check their purse. As it turns out, they had not stolen anything and were simply putting their wallet back in their purse.
That customer may choose to sue for malicious prosecution, which includes harassment and distress due to baseless accusations.
No Comments
Post a Comment |
|
Required
|
|
Required (Not Displayed)
|
|
Required
|
All comments are moderated and stripped of HTML.
|
|
|
|
|
|
NOTICE: This blog and website are made available by the publisher for educational and informational purposes only.
It is not be used as a substitute for competent insurance, legal, or tax advice from a licensed professional
in your state. By using this blog site you understand that there is no broker client relationship between
you and the blog and website publisher.
|