Professional Liability/Errors & Omissions

General Liability insurance does not protect your business against claims of professional negligence, or for failure to perform your professional duties. For this type of coverage, the business will need a separate Professional Liability policy.

Professional Liability Insurance protects your business against loss from a claim of alleged negligent acts, errors or omissions in the performance of your professional services.

The policy normally pays for any resulting judgments against you, including court costs, up to the coverage limits on your policy.

Employment Practices Liability

Employment practices liability coverage protects an employer against an employee’s claims such as:

The purpose of this insurance is to protect the corporation, directors, officers and employees from alleged employment-related wrongful acts. Some features to having this policy are Coverage for front/back pay, attorneys’ fees and compensatory damages, for punitive damages where insurable by law, for actual or alleged retaliatory treatment, varying retention’s for class action suits or other claims, for emotional distress or mental anguish, no purposeful or intentional acts exclusion or reductions in force or mass layoffs exclusion.*

*Coverage varies from company to company.

Directors & Officers Liability

Directors and officers liability coverage protects directors and officers against claims alleging negligence, errors and omissions, misstatements, misleading statements and misrepresentations.

Most organizations have a general liability policy that protects its directors and officers against negligent acts that result in bodily injury or property damage. However, general liability does not protect against alleged wrongful acts or omissions, including breach of duty, which do not result in bodily injury.

Directors and officers coverage protects your executives from potential lawsuits resulting from key decisions or management practices-lawsuits that may target their personal assets.

A comprehensive Directors & Officers liability policy can provide the following:

Insured’s include

• Directors Officers Committee Members Volunteers
• Trustees or Employees

Comprehensive D&O Insurance can:

• Defend Prior Acts Defend Non-Monetary Damages Provide Duty to Defend Coverage Defend Libel, Slander & Defamation of Character
• Defend Discrimination, Sexual Harassment and Wrongful Discharge

Crime coverage can extend to those who may have access to your companies funds:

• Employee Dishonesty Money & Securities
• Forgery & Depository

Pollution / Environmental Liability

Environmental coverage generally falls into two categories. Errors and omissions coverage, also known as professional liability, protects a professional who mistakenly designs a facility that causes pollution in some way. Pollution incident coverage protects professionals on the job in case they cause a pollution incident by perhaps backing into a sewage pipe.

Policies for environmental consultants can feature broad coverage specifically tailored to the specific needs of a professional in the environmental field. Coverage may include pollution incident and asbestos coverage as well as retroactive coverage for eligible firms.

Marine Liability

Marine Laibilities are basically those unique liabilities arising out of the care, custody and control exposures common to the various marine related industries.  For instance, a shipyard drydocking a vessel, a ship repairer welding on a vessel alongside a pier, a stevedore unloading a vessel and a terminal providing a “safe berth” for a vessel all face exposures that a simple General Liability (GL) policy will not cover.  These exposures can be insured by a stand alone marine liability policy in addition to the GL or perhaps through a Comprehensive Marine General Liability (MGL) policy depending upon the nature and extent of the coverage needed.  These policies do carry a deductible and are typically rated on gross receipts.

Excess marine liabilities also are usually not contemplated by an Umbrella policy.  Therefore, excess coverage needs to be obtained on a stand alone basis or under a marine umbrella otherwise known as a Bumbershoot.