General liability the policy your contracts ask for.

General liability is the backbone of a commercial insurance programme and the policy most often named in the contracts you sign. It responds when a third party claims your business injured them or damaged their property — a customer hurt on your premises, a client's property damaged during a job, or an advertising claim brought against you.

Occurrence and aggregate limits

General liability limits come in a pair. The per-occurrence limit is the most the policy pays for any single claim; the aggregate is the most it will pay across the whole policy period. A typical requirement is $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate, which is why those figures appear on so many certificates.

The aggregate matters more than people expect. A year with several moderate claims can erode it, leaving less cover for anything that follows before renewal. If your work carries that pattern, it is worth discussing rather than assuming the standard limits fit.

Products and completed operations

For contractors and manufacturers this is often the critical section. It responds to damage or injury caused by work you have already finished or a product you have already sold — a roof that leaks two years on, a fitting that fails after handover.

Because these claims surface long after the job, continuity of cover matters. Gaps between policies can leave completed work uninsured, which is one reason to move carriers carefully rather than simply chasing a lower premium.