But liability insurance right now just means accidents and mishaps. Not deliberately targeting your business for litigo-warfare on ideological grounds. You’ll need insurance for that likely eventuality in the present climate. Wedding cakes, websites, photographers and whatnot might as well just go out of business ahead of time. This poor woman’s probably going bankrupt with the legal fees, even if she does win at SCOTUS.
“But liability insurance right now just means accidents and mishaps. Not deliberately targeting your business for litigo-warfare on ideological grounds.”
I was a litigation analyst in the insurance industry throughout most of my career, and retired after 35 years. Liability insurance is not limited to premises liability, slips-and-falls, etc. There are many types of liability insurance, under many different types of policies.
They cover YOU, the insured person or entity (the
policyholder, and whomever is defined as an insured under the policy) for a wide variety of risks, including — but not limited to — PO (premises and operations, under which you’ll find BI/PD: bodily injury/property damage); PI (personal injury, such as slander and libel); PL (professional liability); E&O (errors and omissions); etc. Then, there is auto liability; watercraft liability; et al.
The bottom line is liability insurance protects an insured from claims brought by a third-party for some type of injury, and legal expenses are part of the coverage provided (and those expenses are generally ON TOP OF policy limits placed on an injury, and are not limited, except under certain contracts).
Moreover, under the insurance policy, the insurer (such as the insurance company) has a greater duty to DEFEND its insured for claims brought against him/her/it than it has the duty of to INDEMNIFY that insured (i.e., pay the amount of damages to the injured third-party).
Really, it’s a great bargain for an insured, as legal defense costs and expenses can often greatly exceed the amount of the injury itself.
Insurance liability rates for business are usually surprisingly low for a small business. While working as an individual as the sole employee of my LLC about 20 years ago, I had a $1 million umbrella policy for a couple of hundred $$$ a year. I would not sign a contract with a client if their contract would expose me to a liability greater than my insurance coverage. 99.9% of the time, a client would sign my LLC’s contract.
YMMV with these opinions. Notta lawyer but have been around the block.