8.4 Bodily Injury, Property Damage, and Personal/Advertising Injury

The Three Injury Definitions in the CGL

The ISO Commercial General Liability form (CG 00 01) insures three distinct kinds of harm under two separate coverages. The defined terms are tested precisely, so learn what each does and does not include.

Trap: Coverage A (BI/PD) is triggered by an occurrence (accident). Coverage B (Personal & Advertising Injury) is triggered by an offense, not an accident, and is not subject to the occurrence requirement.

Bodily Injury (BI)

The CGL defines bodily injury as "bodily injury, sickness, or disease sustained by a person, including death resulting from any of these at any time." Key tested points:

• Mental anguish or emotional distress is covered only when it arises from a physical bodily injury under the standard form (some endorsements broaden this).
• BI must be sustained by a person (a human being), not an entity.

Property Damage (PD)

Property damage means: (1) physical injury to tangible property, including resulting loss of use; and (2) loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured.

• Tangible property only — data, software, and pure economic loss are generally not PD under the standard form.
• Loss of use is covered even with no physical damage: if a contractor blocks a store's only entrance and the store loses a day of sales, that lost use is PD.

Personal & Advertising Injury (Coverage B)

Coverage B covers injury arising out of a closed list of offenses, not accidents:

• False arrest, detention, or imprisonment
• Malicious prosecution
• Wrongful eviction or wrongful entry / invasion of privacy (right of private occupancy)
• Oral or written publication that slanders or libels a person or organization
• Oral or written publication that violates a person's right of privacy
• The use of another's advertising idea
• Infringing on another's copyright, trade dress, or slogan in your advertisement

Trap: Coverage B specifically lists copyright, trade dress, and slogan infringement in your advertisement — it does NOT cover patent or general trademark infringement. Those are excluded.

How CGL Limits Apply (Worked Example)

The CGL stacks several limits. Assume: Each Occurrence $1,000,000, General Aggregate $2,000,000, Products-Completed Operations Aggregate $2,000,000, Personal & Advertising Injury $1,000,000 per person/organization, Damage to Premises Rented to You $300,000, Medical Payments $10,000 per person.

Exam point: The per-occurrence limit caps any single loss; the aggregate caps total payments in the policy year. Once the General Aggregate is exhausted, the policy stops paying even though the per-occurrence limit looks available. Products-completed operations losses erode their own separate aggregate, not the general aggregate.

Loss of Use Without Physical Damage

The property-damage definition's second prong - loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured - is a frequent test point because it is counterintuitive. If a contractor's mistake forces a factory to shut down a production line that suffered no physical harm, the lost use of that undamaged equipment is property damage.

The trigger for this prong is the occurrence that caused the loss of use, not the date the owner first felt the economic effect. Distinguish this covered loss of use from pure economic loss - lost profits unconnected to any damage or loss of use of tangible property - which the standard CGL does not cover.

What Is Not Bodily Injury or Property Damage

Several items the public assumes are covered fall outside Coverage A's definitions. Data and electronic information are expressly stated not to be tangible property in current CGL editions, so corrupted software is generally not property damage without an endorsement. Purely emotional harm without physical injury is not bodily injury under the unendorsed form. Economic or financial loss - a bad investment, lost market share - is neither BI nor PD. Recognizing these gaps explains why businesses buy separate cyber, professional-liability, and other specialty policies rather than relying on the CGL.

Coverage B Offenses and Their Limits

Because Coverage B is triggered by an offense rather than an accident, its date trigger is the date the offense is committed, and it carries its own separate per-person/organization limit that does not erode the per-occurrence limit. The closed list - false arrest, malicious prosecution, wrongful eviction, libel, slander, invasion of privacy, use of another's advertising idea, and infringement of copyright, trade dress, or slogan in the insured's advertisement - is exhaustive.

Patent and ordinary trademark infringement are outside the list, and an insured needing that protection must seek intellectual-property coverage elsewhere. When a question describes a defamation or advertising-infringement claim, route it to Coverage B and its separate limit, not to the Coverage A occurrence limit.