What Every Business Needs To Survive

Apr 19, 2019, 8:55 AM

Jennifer Harughty of Texas was having fun at a Houston Astros baseball game last summer. At least until, she claims, the T-shirt cannon fired by the Astros’ mascot seriously injured her finger. She’s had surgery and is now suing the team to recover her expenses.

If the Astros have to pay Harughty, the money will most likely come from the team’s insurance coverage — their general liability coverage. It applies to bodily injuries and property damage: in other words, it’s beneficial for nearly every business.



Bodily injury is defined as injury, sickness, or disease sustained by a person, including death resulting from any of these at any time.

Property damage is physical injury to tangible property, including all resulting loss of use of that property, or loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured. Tangible property is anything that’s a possession: land, buildings, tools, vehicles, and almost everything else you can think of.

While a basic general liability policy provides coverage for bodily injury and property damage claims, you can expand coverage with the addition of these endorsements to your policy: 

Liability Coverage Extension

This endorsement bundles several coverages that policyholders may find valuable to protect their businesses, such as product recall expense, additional medical payments, and additional insured coverage, to name a few. 

Hired and Non-owned Auto Liability

Many businesses use vehicles in the course of their operations whether they own them or not. They may ask an employee to use their own auto (meaning a car or truck) or occasionally rent an auto. Hired and non-owned auto coverage is designed for these situations, to provide liability coverage to the policyholder for autos they don’t own.  

Cyber Liability and Data Breach Response

We’ve discussed this before — it’s protection if you’re hacked, or if an employee email carries a virus. 

Protect your company, no matter what business you’re in. Find exactly the coverage you need. Contact your local independent insurance agent and ask about our general liability coverage. 

Has liability coverage helped you? Let us know in the comments.

The Mutual Understanding blog and Hastings Mutual videos are made available for educational purposes only. The information referred to is not an official company statement, corporate policy, or offer of coverage. Refer to your insurance policy for specific coverage. There is no representation as to the accuracy or completeness of any information found by following any link on this site. Please contact your local independent insurance agent with further questions and for more details on any insurance policy-related information you read here.

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