What Does General Liability Insurance Cover for a Business?

General liability insurance typically covers third-party bodily injury, property damage, and advertising injury claims against your business. It generally doesn’t cover your own employees’ injuries, professional mistakes, or damage to your own property.

Why it matters

Most businesses that interact with customers, clients, or the public in any way carry some form of general liability coverage because it addresses one of the most common risks: someone other than an employee being hurt, or their property being damaged, in connection with your business. But it’s often misunderstood as broader than it is — it doesn’t cover a client injured by professional advice you gave, an employee hurt on the job, or damage to a project you were hired to build.

What affects the answer

• What your business actually does. A retail shop, a contractor, and a professional services firm all face different exposures, and the specifics of a policy should reflect that.
• Where your business operates. A business with a physical location the public visits has different considerations than one that works exclusively at client sites.
• What other coverage you carry alongside it. General liability is often paired with other coverage, like professional liability or workers’ compensation, to address exposures it doesn’t cover.

In Missouri

Missouri requires most employers with five or more employees to carry workers’ compensation coverage, which is separate from general liability and covers employee injuries on the job. A general liability policy alone doesn’t satisfy that requirement.

An example

A contractor in the Kansas City metro assumed their general liability policy would cover a claim involving faulty workmanship on a client’s project. It didn’t — that type of claim falls under professional or errors and omissions coverage, which is a separate policy worth discussing based on the type of work performed.

Questions worth asking

• What third-party claims does my general liability policy actually cover?
• Does my business need separate coverage for professional mistakes or errors?
• Am I required to carry workers’ compensation given my number of employees?
• Does my policy cover damage to a client’s property while I’m working on it?