Pennsylvania Business Insurance

General liability insurance, known as Commercial General Liability (CGL), protects your small business from another person or business’s claims of bodily injury, associated medical costs, and damage to property. Some examples of what could be covered are below:

• Bodily injury: A customer trips and falls when entering a hair salon and breaks their wrist. The client sues the hair salon owner for lost wages. General liability insurance could cover the subsequent claim and related medical expenses.
• Personal injury: A personal trainer is overheard talking about one of his clients at lunch in a false and unflattering way. Word gets back to the client, who then sues for slander. The personal trainer’s general liability policy could cover defense costs.
• Damage to property: A photographer is contracted to take pictures for a marketing firm’s portfolio. While the photographer is uploading the photos to the server she accidentally knocks over a bottle of water on the firm’s server. The machine is damaged beyond repair and valuable data is lost. The photographer’s general liability insurance policy could cover the cost to replace the server and recover the data.

Learn more about general liability insurance costs.

Professional liability insurance, also known as errors and omissions insurance (E&O insurance), covers another person’s claims against businesses that provide professional and personal services. Some examples of what could be covered include:

• Dissatisfied client: A marketing consultant is contracted to create a major campaign for a client. The client continues to change the scope of work and the consultant misses the deadline for the campaign to go live. The client sues. A professional liability policy could protect the consultant, even if no mistake was made.
• Negligence: A human resources consultant is hired to update a company’s employment practices. Six months later, the client calls to say a part-time employee is suing the company because a key provision for the number of hours part-timers can work was omitted from the employee manual. The client makes a claim against the consultant, contending they were responsible for the mistake. The consultants professional liability policy could protect them, including defense costs.

Learn more about professional liability insurance.

Business owners policy (BOP) is a combination of general liability and business property insurance. BOP is often used to provide balanced coverage for small businesses who also want to protect their own business equipment. Some examples of what could be covered are below:

• Office insurance for fire and business interruption
• Electronic data loss insurance
• Hired or non-owned vehicle liability insurance
• Commercial Crime insurance to cover the dishonesty of your employees

Learn more about business owners insurance.