Personal and advertising injury are two types of harm covered by general liability insurance and business owners’ policies.
Personal Injury
If you conduct any of the following personal injury offenses, your general liability insurance and company owner’s policy will protect you:
- False arrest, confinement, or imprisonment: You have wrongfully taken away someone’s right to liberty.
- Taking legal action against someone without reasonable grounds is known as malicious prosecution.
- Wrongful eviction or entry: You wrongfully evict someone from their leased premises or invade their privacy as a property owner.
Advertising Injury
Advertising injury liability is covered by your general liability insurance or business owner’s policy, which includes:
- Slander or libel of a person or company: You defame a person or company by making false statements in speech (slander) or writing or photographs (libel). Some professions with separate exposures to slander or libel, such as lawyers, media and advertising companies, and publishers, would be covered by professional liability insurance.
- You make oral or written assertions that misappropriate someone’s name or likeness, trespass on someone’s right to solitude or privacy, or reveal private information, even if the statements are genuine.
- You misappropriate a company’s advertising content for your purposes by using another company’s advertising themes or concepts without permission.
- Copyright infringement or slogan infringement: You use, distribute, or exhibit copyrighted work without the owner’s consent.
Your general liability insurance policy covers these costs up to the personal and advertising injury limit mentioned on the declarations page of your policy:
- Fees for legal representation
- Costs of a settlement or a judgment
- Witness fees and other court expenses
Make sure you’re looking at the right limit when determining how much personal and advertising protection you have. Your personal and advertising injury cap is separate from the other caps on your declarations page.
Want to learn more about personal injury? Here’s a blog on what personal injury protection covers.