Types Of Liability Insurance That You Should Know
Offering insurance coverage to owners of small/big businesses, professionals such as doctors, lawyers, accountants, and other self-employed individuals, is Liability Insurance. This insurance covers costs incurred in the event of malpractice claims slapped against them. Malpractice could mean and includes mistakes committed on purpose or unintentionally such as abandoning responsibility, unethical and unprofessional behavior, negligence, or incompetence. The importance of possessing a liability insurance should not be undermined because having it or not might be the deciding factor in the business or profession being continued or ending, in the event of a liability claim.
The different types of liability insurance are:
- Commercial general liability: covers claims including, but not limited to, physical injury to the body, damages to vehicles, property, products being manufactured, sold or distributed, destruction of current or completed business operations, independent contractor liability and so on.
- Directors and Officers liability: payable to directors and officers of a company. It refers to the reimbursement of money suffered as a loss or spent towards legal expenses incurred in defending an alleged wrongful action of theirs as the office holder of the organization. Claims can be made by any stakeholder – employees, suppliers, competitors, customers, or shareholders.
- Professional liability insurance or Errors & Omissions: protects professionals providing advice or services like attorneys, accountants, and doctors against claims by clients, and also damages, if any, awarded to plaintiffs for lawsuits.
- Cyber liability insurance: lessens the losses suffered in the event of a breach, or loss of electronic data, and the costs involved in retrieving them or settling claims of affected customers.
- Commercial crime insurance: covers organizations other than financial institutions against money orders and counterfeit money coverage, employee dishonesty, burglary, forgery, extortion coverage etc.
- Carrier legal liability insurance: beneficial for owners of transportation companies that run the risk of financial loss of goods entrusted to them. Coverage includes damage caused by flood, fire, accident, lost or improper handling of freight, emergency storage costs, legal costs incurred in the litigation against claimants.
- Trade credit insurance: compensates a loss of money arising from non-payment of debts/dues from customers due to insolvency or cheating.