Does My Business Need DE General Liability Insurance?
One of the most trying situations a business owner can face is liability claims for injury or damages to third party. Any business is exposed to bodily injury and property damage claims and the resulting litigation from the your business operations.
Legal fees and judgements can put small companies out of business. A Delaware general liability insurance policy would provide defense costs for a covered claim and pay damages if the business is found legally liable.
What Does Delaware General Liability Insurance Cover?
General liability is commercial coverage that is designed to provide financial protection for businesses from many types of risk exposures. A General liability insurance policy has 3 main parts of coverage; Bodily Injury and Property Damage Liability (Coverage A), Personal and Advertising Injury (Coverage B) and Medical Payments (Coverage C). Following are some of the most important coverages:
- The cost of medical care claimed by the injured party. For example, if a customer slips and falls on your premises and requires medical treatment, your policy would cover the costs.
- Restitution for death and loss of services.
- Compensation for physical damage to other people’s property and loss of use of the same. Even if you’re careful it’s still a possibility that something your business does, or doesn’t do, could cause damage another person’s or businesses property.
- Compensation to consumers for loss on account of using company manufactured products and retribution for loss due to services rendered by the company. So if something your business manufactures or a service your company provides causes an injury, your policy can pay for any resulting damages including legal expenses.
- Contractual liability coverage for any liability is assumed by entering into contracts like lease agreements for the building, elevator maintenance agreements or indemnity agreements.
- Coverage for hired and non-owned autos. Hired would be liability coverage for rented vehicles and non-owned is if employees use their personal auto on company business – like running to the bank or office store for supplies.
- Liquor liability if you do not sell, serve, furnish, manufacture or distribute, alcoholic beverages , your general liability insurance policy will cover you if are held liable for a liquor-related incident.
- The costs of legal defense. These costs commonly include compensatory damages, nonmonetary losses suffered by the injured party, and punitive damages.
- Coverage for advertising injuries as a result of publishing inaccurate information.
- Protection for violation of someone’s right to privacy and infringing on another company’s copyright, title or slogan.
What Delaware General Liability Insurance Doesn’t Cover
General liability typically does not cover:
- Professional mistakes – Only professional liability insurance (E&O) can cover lawsuits due to negligence and professional mistakes.
- Damage to your property – General liability only covers third-party property damage. You need business property cover yours.
- Employee injuries – CGL only covers non-employee bodily injuries. You will need workers compensation to cover employee injuries
- Employment disputes – Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI), not general liability, covers lawsuits if an employee sues over harassment, wrongful termination, discrimination, and similar issues.
- Damage to your vehicles – Commercial auto will cover damages to your vehicles.
Claims-Made vs Occurrence
When buying commercial general liability it’s important know the difference between a claims-made or occurrence policy:
Claims-Made – Provides coverage over a specific time period, and only covers claims that are made during that time period – even if the claim happened at a different time. So if you had a policy that cancelled on January 1, 2020 – then a claim was filed on February 1, 2020 for an injury that happened on December 1st 2019 – you WOULD NOT have coverage.
Occurrence – This policy is different because it covers claims that occurred during a specified time period, and will not cover claims that occurred before the policy was effective. So if you had a policy that cancelled on January 1, 2020 – then a claim was filed on February 1, 2020 for an injury that happened on December 1st 2019 – you WOULD have coverage (if it wasn’t exlcuded from the policy).
How Much Does Delaware General Liability Insurance Cost?
How much does Delaware general liability insurance cost? The premiums vary depending on the amount of risk exposure, and it depends on the endorsements and deductible selected. Following are some of the main factors that go into the price of a policy:
- Type of business (contracting, service, retail etc.)
- General liability classification code
- DE business location
- Years in business
- Business experience
- Annual payroll
- Annual revenue
- History of claims
Further Reading On Commercial General Liability Insurance
DE General Liability Insurance Quotes
Request a Delaware General Liability Insurance quote in Arden, Ardencroft, Ardentown, Bellefonte, Bethany Beach, Blades, Bowers, Bridgeville, Camden, Cheswold, Clayton, Dagsboro, Delaware City, Delmar, Dewey Beach, Dover, Ellendale, Elsmere, Felton, Fenwick Island, Frankford, Frederica, Georgetown, Greenwood, Harrington, Houston, Kenton, Laurel, Lewes, Little Creek, Magnolia, Middletown, Milford, Millsboro, Millville, Milton, New Castle, Newark, Newport, Ocean View, Odessa, Rehoboth Beach, Seaford, Selbyville, Slaughter Beach, Smyrna, South Bethany, Townsend, Wilmington, Wyoming and all other cities in DE.
Delaware Insurance Regulations
In the state of Delaware, there are certain regulations that are applicable to both personal and commercial insurance. There are actually tens of thousands of individual regulations, governing everything from the amount of assets or cash an insurance company must have per policy to how insurance companies can advertise, but the list of regulations that you need to know about is thankfully a lot smaller.
DE Commercial Insurance
Commercial insurance, also known as general liability insurance, protects a business and their customers in a variety of ways. One form of general liability coverage is bodily insurance which is physical damage to anyone on your premises other than employees.
Employees are covered under another type of insurance called Worker's Compensation. In addition, general liability can cover properly damage, protect you from personal injury suits, advertising injuries and provide legal defense and payment for judgments.
Delaware is not one of the states where commercial insurance is required to operate a business. Delaware is a modified comparative fault state with a 51% negligence standard. There are no caps on awards for personal injury suits in Delaware and the statute of limitations for filing after something happens is two years.
As for how much insurance you should carry in Delaware, there is no clear answer. The best thing to do is to research the type of business you have and what kinds of lawsuits are possible, as well as what the payouts for those lawsuits usually turns out to be, so that you can see how much liability coverage you should carry.
Delaware Personal Insurance
There are a few different types of personal insurance available for consumers, but the only one that has any sort of regulation that you need to know about is auto insurance. There are laws in place governing how much liability insurance you are required to carry in Delaware. However, there are no regulations that consumers need to be aware of when it comes to life insurance, flood insurance or various other types of available insurance.
As for the auto insurance regulations, the state of Delaware requires you to carry auto insurance that pays as a result of an accident that was your fault. The limits are known as 15 000 USD /30 000 USD /10 000 USD. That means that you are required to have 15 000 USD per person or 30 000 USD per accident in your auto insurance coverage. You will also need to have an additional 10 000 USD for property damage.