What is Personal and Advertising Injury Insurance?
Personal and Advertising Injury (P&AI) is a standard coverage found under Section I of a commercial general liability insurance policy (CGL), it carries a separate limit than bodily injury and property damage liability. Under a CGL coverage form Personal Injury provides coverage for insurable offenses that produce harm other than bodily injury to a third party. Personal Injury includes; false arrest, detention, or imprisonment; malicious prosecution, wrongful eviction, slander, libel and invasion of privacy. Advertising Injury under a general liability coverage form insures the following offenses in connection with an insured’s advertising of it’s goods or services; libel, slander, invasion of privacy, copyright infringement, and misappropriation of advertising ideas.
Why do you need Personal and Advertising Injury Insurance?
Similar to Coverage A (bodily injury and property damage) on a CGL insurance policy, the insurance company has the duty and right to defend a suit seeking damages under this coverage. P&AI may provide coverage for an act that somehow violates or infringes on the rights of others. For the most part, P&IA claims involves intentional acts within the scope of the coverage caused by an offense by an insured which violated or infringed another person or organization’s legally protected rights. The offense must arise out of the business of the named insured.
When is Personal and Advertising Injury excluded or limited on a CGL policy?
For certain classes of business P&AI may be limited or excluded on a CGL insurance policy, these classes will generally include those classes of business who’s primary operations involve media services and advertising e.g. an advertising agency, Other types of business may include web designers, technology service providers, software developers, businesses who manage IT services for others including providing data backup and recovery, technology integration, programmers, cloud services, cyber security, domain registration and hosting. For these classes of business P&AI is generally going to be provided under a Professional Liability or Technology Errors & Omissions insurance policy. It is vitally important for you as an insured to confirm with your business insurance agent or that you read the exclusions section of your CGL insurance policy to make sure that P&AI is not limited or excluded, otherwise you could end up with a P&IA claim being denied by your insurance carrier.
