Commercial General Liability Insurance for multiple office locations?

Question

Do I need seperate Commercial General liability policies for each individual office location or is one policy sufficient?

Answer 1

As long as the multiple office locations are of the same nature (and a lot of times, even if they aren't), then one policy will do fine, and will just include all the locations.

That is, as long as all the offices are owned by the same entity.

HOWEVER, there is one major drawback to this - a general liability policy has an "occurrence" limit - the most the policy will pay for one claim, and an "aggregate" limit - the most the policy will pay during one year. So, if you have 6 offices, and two each have a million dollar claim, and you have a $2,000,000 aggregate on the policy, then guess what? You're out of coverage for the policy, for ALL locations, for the rest of the year.

There are several ways around that. 1. you could buy a commercial umbrella policy, to increase the total claim payout limit. 2. You could increase the aggregate limit - the highest agg limit I've seen in recent years is $3,000,000, but $2,000,000 is standard. 3. You could add an endorsement, if the company will allow it - the "per location aggregate limit" endorsement - which effectivey says, the aggregate limit applies to EACH scheduled location, NOT the policy as a whole. But this endorsement is harder and harder to get these days, as, say, if you have 6 locations, the maximum policy payout would now be $12,000,000.

You'll have to discuss your options with your agent.

Answer 2

You may be able to include the locations on the policy. Here is a directory of commercial agents - http://www.insuremywork.com I would ask one of them.

Answer 3

One policy should cover all, of course depending on the locations.

Answer 4

I think you have to have