Personal & Advertising Injury

Personal and advertising injury (often just "Coverage B") is the second insuring agreement of the standard commercial general liability policy. Where Coverage A responds to bodily injury and property damage, Coverage B responds to a specific, named list of offenses that cause non-physical harm: false arrest or wrongful detention, malicious prosecution, wrongful eviction from a premises the insured owns or leases, oral or written publication that libels or slanders a person or organization, publication that violates someone's right of privacy, the use of another's advertising idea in your advertisement, and infringing on another's copyright, trade dress, or slogan in your advertisement. Because the list is defined, an offense not named on it is generally not covered.

For a small business, Coverage B is quietly one of the most valuable parts of the policy because these exposures are easy to trigger without ever having an accident. Post a sharp comparison of a competitor and you risk a defamation or disparagement claim; run an ad that borrows a tagline and you risk an infringement suit; evict a subtenant improperly and you risk a wrongful-eviction claim. In each case the CGL provides both defense costs and damages up to the policy limits, and the insurer's duty to defend is broad — it applies even to groundless suits, which is often worth more than the indemnity itself.

The critical nuance is the gaps. Coverage B contains exclusions for offenses committed knowingly, for breach of contract, for actual falsity known to the insured, and — importantly — for businesses whose core operation is media, advertising, publishing, or broadcasting, which are steered instead toward specialized media liability coverage. Patent and trademark infringement (as opposed to copyright, trade dress, or slogan in an advertisement) are typically not covered either. Coverage B shares the policy's per-occurrence and aggregate limit, so large advertising-injury claims can erode limits available for bodily-injury losses.