General liability vs E&O in Florida: an injury vs a mistake
A customer trips on the rug in your office. A client follows your advice and loses money. Both feel like “a claim.” They usually land on different policies.
General liability vs errors and omissions (E&O) in Florida comes down to this: GL is built for injury and property damage. E&O — also called professional liability — is built for the advice, service, or work product that went wrong.
What GL is for
General liability typically responds to bodily injury and property damage to others, plus some advertising and personal injury, depending on the form. The trip-and-fall. The coffee on the client’s laptop. More at liability. If you also need your own building and equipment protected, that’s where BOP is not just GL comes in.
What E&O is for
E&O is aimed at financial harm from a professional mistake or a missed step: a bookkeeper’s filing error, a realtor’s disclosure miss, an IT consultant’s misconfiguration, a consultant’s recommendation that didn’t work out. Many GL forms exclude professional services, so the client’s lawsuit may not find a home there.
E&O policies are often claims-made, which means when the claim is reported and the retroactive date can matter as much as when the work happened. We won’t guess your form here.
Who should ask
Consultants, realtors, bookkeepers and tax preparers, IT and web folks, designers, and anyone whose contract says “professional liability” in the insurance section. If a client ever signed off on your advice, it’s worth a review. More at E&O.
Bring what you do (in plain words), your contracts, revenue, and any current policies. Gumbo Insurance Agency LLC is a licensed Florida independent agency. This page does not quote or bind. WhatsApp (407) 907-9407. License L132963.
GL covers the customer who trips. The advice that went wrong may need its own policy.
Gumbo Insurance Agency LLC · 1850 Lee Rd Suite 347, Winter Park, FL 32789 · WhatsApp (407) 907-9407 · gumboinsurance.com · License L132963
This article is general information, not a policy and not insurance advice. Coverage depends on the form, the carrier, and the facts.
Liability · E&O · BOP is not just GL · BOP