Coverage for professional advice, governance decisions, and HR exposures lives outside the CGL.
- Professional liability / Errors & Omissions (E&O), covers the insured's liability for economic loss caused by negligent acts, errors, or omissions in the rendering of professional services. Standard for brokers themselves (RIBO mandates broker E&O), accountants, lawyers, engineers, IT consultants, medical professionals. Written claims-made, with a retroactive date.
- Directors & Officers (D&O) liability, covers the personal liability of directors and officers for wrongful acts in their governance of the corporation. Typical structure: Side A (individual D&O where the corporation cannot indemnify), Side B (corporate reimbursement for indemnified D&O), Side C (entity coverage for securities claims for public companies).
- Employment Practices Liability (EPL), covers the corporation's and managers' liability for employment-related wrongful acts: wrongful dismissal, discrimination, harassment, failure to promote. Standard wages-and-hours claims are typically excluded or sublimited.
- Cyber liability, covers first-party data-breach response costs (forensics, notification, credit monitoring, public relations), and third-party liability for the breach (lawsuits by affected individuals, regulatory fines where insurable). A fast-evolving market with substantially different wordings across insurers.
These specialty lines are usually claims-made with low aggregate limits relative to CGL. They are not substitutes for CGL but additional placements.
Common mistake: a small business owner thinking the CGL covers wrongful-dismissal litigation by an employee. It does not. EPL is the appropriate placement, and the CGL "employment-related practices" exclusion will deny.
⚠️ Trap: Cyber wordings are not standardized. Two cyber policies sold at the same limit can respond very differently to the same claim. One may cover ransomware payment; the other may exclude it entirely. Read every cyber wording in detail.
Recall: Which liability product responds to a wrongful-dismissal lawsuit? Why is D&O Side A coverage important even when the corporation indemnifies its directors?