3.2 Georgia General Liability Insurance

Fault Allocation & Apportionment

General liability claims in Georgia run on the same negligence engine as auto: modified comparative negligence with a 50% bar under O.C.G.A. § 51-12-33. A plaintiff who is 50% or more at fault recovers nothing; below 50%, the award is reduced by the plaintiff's fault percentage.

Apportionment Replaced Joint-and-Several Liability

The critical Georgia distinction for the casualty exam: § 51-12-33 largely abolished traditional joint-and-several liability. The trier of fact assigns a percentage of fault to each defendant (and to non-parties whose conduct contributed), and each defendant pays only its own apportioned share of the judgment.

Exam Tip: Do not describe Georgia as a "pure joint-and-several" state. Since the 2005 tort-reform amendments, fault is apportioned and liability is several — a defendant 20% at fault pays 20% of the damages, not the whole amount.

Commercial General Liability (CGL) Essentials

The standard ISO CGL covers Coverage A (bodily injury/property damage), Coverage B (personal and advertising injury), and Coverage C (medical payments). Producers must disclose:

• Trigger: occurrence (injury during the policy period) vs. claims-made (claim reported during the period, with a retroactive date).
• Limits structure: per-occurrence limit, general aggregate, and products–completed operations aggregate.
• Defense: the insurer's duty to defend is broader than the duty to indemnify and defense costs are usually outside the limits (until a claims-made/eroding form says otherwise).
• Exclusions: notably the absolute pollution exclusion, which must be clearly disclosed.

Rate Regulation & Specialty Liability Lines

Who Regulates Rates

Property and casualty rates in Georgia are filed with the Office of Commissioner of Insurance and Safety Fire (OCI), a state agency headed by an elected Commissioner. Georgia is principally a prior-approval state for many lines: rates may not be "excessive, inadequate, or unfairly discriminatory." Trap: "OCI" here is the Georgia office — not a federal body — and casualty rates are not pure "file-and-use" the way some other states operate.

Professional Liability (E&O / Malpractice)

Medical malpractice update: Georgia's $350,000 statutory cap on non-economic damages was struck down as unconstitutional in Atlanta Oculoplastic Surgery v. Nestlehutt (Ga. 2010). Do not state that Georgia caps med-mal pain-and-suffering damages.

Products Liability & Statute of Repose

Under O.C.G.A. § 51-1-11, Georgia imposes strict liability on manufacturers for defective products and a 10-year statute of repose — no strict-liability suit for a product more than 10 years after its first sale (limited fraud/failure-to-warn exceptions). Coverage flows through the CGL products–completed operations hazard with its own aggregate.

Insurability of Punitive Damages

Exam Tip: Pair two Georgia facts — punitive damages are generally uninsurable, and most are statutorily capped at $250,000 (with product-liability and intentional-harm exceptions exempt from the cap).

Pollution & Environmental Liability

The standard CGL contains an absolute pollution exclusion, so businesses with environmental exposure need Environmental Impairment Liability (EIL) or Pollution Legal Liability coverage. Georgia’s Hazardous Site Response Act and the Environmental Protection Division (EPD) impose strict liability for cleanup of contaminated sites, and underground storage tank (UST) owners must demonstrate financial responsibility. Producers must disclose the pollution exclusion and offer environmental coverage to at-risk commercial accounts.

Statutes of Limitation Producers Should Know

These drive how long a liability tail can produce claims and why claims-made CGL forms need adequate extended reporting periods (tail coverage) when a policy is replaced or cancelled.

Duties After a Liability Loss

Producers should counsel commercial insureds on post-loss duties baked into the CGL: give the insurer prompt notice of an occurrence, claim, or suit; forward every demand and legal paper; cooperate in the defense; and not voluntarily make payments or assume obligations except at the insured's own cost. Breaching these conditions can forfeit coverage. Because the insurer owes a duty to defend whenever the allegations potentially fall within coverage, early reporting protects both the defense and the indemnity, especially on claims-made forms where late reporting can void the claim entirely.