What is the difference between general liability and professional liability?

General liability covers bodily injury and property damage, the physical stuff that happens when a customer trips in your office.

What is professional liability or errors and omissions (E&O) insurance?

Pays when a service provider's mistake causes a client a financial loss. Like malpractice for non-medical professions.

What specialty commercial classes does Philadelphia Insurance cover in Georgia?

Philadelphia Insurance Companies (PHLY) is backed by Tokio Marine Group and specializes in industry niches.

What insurance do Lawrenceville healthcare professionals need?

Lawrenceville has a large healthcare and medical professional community concentrated around Gwinnett Medical Center.

What do claims-made limits mean on Georgia professional liability?

A claims-made policy only pays if both the incident and the claim are reported while the policy is active, and it uses a retroactive date; tail coverage extends the reporting window after cancellation.

Professional Liability FAQs

What does professional liability insurance not cover in Georgia?

All FAQs

Quick answer: Professional liability policies exclude bodily injury, property damage, criminal acts, and employment practices claims.

What Does Professional Liability Insurance Not Cover in Georgia?

Professional liability insurance in Georgia is narrowly scoped by design. It pays for claims that your professional services caused a client a financial loss through error, omission, or failure to deliver competent work. Every other category of risk sits outside that boundary. The exclusions are not fine print; they are deliberate gaps that require separate policies. Knowing what each exclusion is and which companion policy fills it prevents a coverage hole that only becomes visible when a claim arrives.

What Are the Most Common Exclusions in a Professional Liability Policy?

A standard professional liability policy in Georgia typically excludes the following categories of claims:

Bodily injury and property damage: If a client trips in your office or you damage someone's property on a job site, those claims go to a general liability policy. Professional liability does not respond to physical harm.
Intentional acts, fraud, and deliberate wrongdoing: The policy pays for honest mistakes, not for a judgment where you knowingly deceived or defrauded a client.
Criminal acts and willful violations of law: A court finding you criminally liable voids coverage for that claim.
Employee injuries: An employee hurt on the job is a workers compensation claim. Professional liability covers client claims, not employment injuries. See our FAQ on what workers compensation insurance covers for context on that separate requirement.
Cyber incidents and data breaches: If you hold client data and it is exposed, a standard professional liability policy typically will not cover notification costs, regulatory fines, or third-party claims that follow. Our FAQ on whether small businesses need cyber insurance explains when a standalone cyber liability policy is necessary.
Work performed before the retroactive date: Most professional liability policies in Georgia are written on a claims-made basis, meaning the incident must fall on or after a retroactive date you and your insurer agree on. Services performed before that date are excluded even if the client sues while the policy is active. Our claims-made versus occurrence FAQ explains this distinction in full.

How Does the Bodily Injury Exclusion Work in Practice?

For example, a Georgia-based management consultant gives strategic advice that leads to a client's significant revenue loss. That is exactly the financial harm professional liability is built to cover. Now suppose a client visiting that same consultant's office slips on a wet floor and fractures a wrist. That is a bodily injury claim; general liability handles it, not professional liability. The two policies do not overlap; they divide the risk between them.

What Policies Typically Pair With Professional Liability in Georgia?

Because the gaps are predictable, professionals in Georgia typically pair professional liability with general liability. Depending on the business, cyber liability and workers compensation often round out the picture. What the right combination looks like depends on the services you provide, how you store client data, and whether you have employees. Our professional liability overview FAQ covers who needs this coverage and what it typically costs.

How Do You Know Which Exclusions Apply to Your Specific Business?

For example, a Georgia accountant who also manages client investments faces both professional liability exposure from tax advice and potential claims that may require a financial-services-specific errors-and-omissions policy. A single consulting-focused policy may not match the actual scope of services delivered, leaving a gap the accountant does not know exists until a client files a claim.

A licensed advisor can map those exposures against your actual operations. Request a free coverage review to get a clear view of where your current coverage leaves gaps and which companion policies address them.