What is bodily injury liability insurance?
Bodily injury coverage in business insurance is what it sounds like — insurance coverage for when someone is harmed physically. This can be an injury, but can also refer to sickness, disease or any other incident that may require medical treatment.
Bodily injury liability coverage is intended to help pay for medical expenses, legal fees and other costs if you are responsible for injuring someone while conducting business. This type of insurance can be essential for protecting your assets and finances against legal action.
Not all insurance policies address bodily injury, and for those that do, different insurance policies address different instances of bodily injury. For example:
Bodily injury vs. personal injury: What’s the difference?
Sometimes people use the terms bodily injury and personal injury interchangeably.
For lawyers, personal injury includes bodily injury as well as other forms of injury, for example, reputational injury like slander or defamation.
In insurance, bodily injury is a subcategory of personal injury. Bodily injury is when someone is harmed physically, but personal injuries can include various damages, including damage to someone’s personal reputation or an invasion of someone’s privacy.
How much bodily injury liability do I need?
The amount of business liability insurance you need and its costs vary across industries. Factors that influence your price include:
- The number of employees and the type of work they do.
- Your total payroll.
- Your insurance claims history.
- The locations where you do business.
Get a free instant quote in about 10 minutes to see how much bodily injury coverage you require and your actual business insurance cost.
Who needs bodily injury liability coverage?
Since there’s no way to avoid 100% of accidents, the simple answer is — every business.
Accidents can happen on premises at your business, to one of your employees, or while you’re working on a project offsite. Without proper bodily injury insurance, you would be financially responsible for paying medical payments or legal fees yourself.
Bodily injury coverage can be required by law, and it’s often included in many insurance policies sought by small business owners. Get a quote or ask your agent if you’re covered via these policies:
- General liability insurance
- Workers’ compensation insurance
- Product liability insurance
- Commercial auto insurance
For example, general contractors sometimes need general liability coverage as part of their state license requirements because of the risks involved in their work.
Similarly, gyms and fitness studios sometimes require fitness professionals to have this coverage before allowing them to work there.
Depending on the state where you do business, if you have employees, you’re likely required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. Because workers’ comp covers bodily injury, if one of your employees has an accident, this coverage may help pay for their medical expenses.
