General liability coverage is insurance that responds to sums that the policyholder is legally obligated to pay as damages because of bodily injury or property damage to third parties (and generally will also include either a duty to defend such claims or to reimburse defense costs). Thus, general liability coverage would respond to such tort claims as slip-and-fall lawsuits and product liability exposures. In addition, most such policies also cover certain enumerated personal or advertising injury offenses (such as defamation or disparagement).

Most general liability policies are written on an “occurrence” basis. An occurrence-based general liability policy is triggered to respond by bodily injury or property damage taking place during its policy period, regardless of when the claim is made against a policyholder. Given multi-year statutes of limitations for many torts and the possibility of latent injuries, this means that it is frequently a prior year’s occurrence policy (or policies, for long-term injury claims) that responds to a claim that comes in during the current year.