8.4 Bodily Injury, Property Damage, and Personal/Advertising Injury
Key Takeaways
- Bodily injury (BI) means physical harm — injury, sickness, disease, or death — to a person; mental anguish counts only when it flows from physical injury under standard ISO wording.
- Property damage (PD) means physical injury to or destruction of tangible property, INCLUDING loss of use of property that is not physically damaged.
- Personal and advertising injury (Coverage B of the CGL) covers specific offenses — false arrest, malicious prosecution, libel, slander, wrongful eviction, and copying advertising ideas — not physical harm.
- The CGL splits limits: a per-occurrence limit and a separate general aggregate, with products-completed-operations carrying its own aggregate that does NOT share the general aggregate.
- Coverage A pays BI and PD on an occurrence basis; Coverage B pays personal/advertising injury triggered by the offense, and both erode the same aggregate.
Bodily Injury (BI)
Bodily injury means bodily injury, sickness, or disease sustained by a person, including death resulting from any of these. It is physical harm to a HUMAN being.
Trap: Under standard ISO wording, mental anguish or emotional distress counts as bodily injury only when it arises out of an actual physical injury. Purely emotional harm with no physical component is typically excluded unless the policy is specifically endorsed.
Property Damage (PD)
Property damage means:
- Physical injury to tangible property, including resulting loss of use; AND
- Loss of use of tangible property that is NOT physically injured.
The second prong is heavily tested: if an insured blocks a client's loading dock and the client cannot ship goods, the loss of use is property damage even though nothing was physically harmed.
Trap: Electronic data is NOT tangible property under the unendorsed CGL — so corrupting a customer's data is generally not "property damage." Cyber coverage handles that exposure.
Personal and Advertising Injury
Coverage B of the Commercial General Liability (CGL) responds to personal and advertising injury — a closed list of OFFENSES, not physical harm:
| Offense | Example |
|---|---|
| False arrest / detention / imprisonment | Store wrongly detains a shopper |
| Malicious prosecution | Baseless criminal complaint filed |
| Wrongful eviction / entry | Landlord locks out a tenant |
| Libel / slander / disparagement | Published false statement harms reputation |
| Invasion of privacy | Publication that violates privacy |
| Copying advertising idea / infringing slogan | Lifting a competitor's ad concept |
Trap: Coverage B is triggered when the offense is committed, not by an "occurrence." Bodily injury and property damage belong under Coverage A, never Coverage B.
CGL Limit Structure (CG 00 01)
The ISO CGL stacks several limits. Understanding how they interact is a frequent exam topic:
| Limit | What It Caps |
|---|---|
| Each Occurrence | Most paid for any one occurrence (BI + PD combined) |
| General Aggregate | Most paid in the policy period for Coverage A (other than products-completed-ops), Coverage B, and medical payments |
| Products-Completed Operations Aggregate | Separate cap for products/completed-work claims |
| Personal & Advertising Injury | Per-person/organization cap, subject to general aggregate |
| Damage to Premises Rented to You | Fire/limited PD for rented premises |
| Medical Payments | Small no-fault limit per person |
Worked Aggregate Example
A contractor's CGL carries a $1,000,000 each occurrence limit, a $2,000,000 general aggregate, and a $2,000,000 products-completed-operations aggregate.
During the year three premises liability claims pay $1,000,000, $700,000, and $600,000.
- First two claims = $1,700,000 against the general aggregate.
- The third claim of $600,000 would push the total to $2,300,000, but the general aggregate caps payouts at $2,000,000, so only $300,000 of the third claim is paid; the insured owes the $300,000 balance.
Key point: The products-completed-operations aggregate is SEPARATE — exhausting the general aggregate does NOT touch it, and vice versa.
A delivery company negligently parks so a retailer cannot open its store for a day, costing lost sales. No property was physically harmed. How does the CGL classify this?
A retailer's CGL has a $1,000,000 each-occurrence limit and a $2,000,000 general aggregate. After paying premises claims of $1,200,000 and $900,000 in the policy year, how much of a third $500,000 premises claim is covered?
Loss of Use and the Personal/Advertising Injury Offenses
Property damage includes not only physical injury to tangible property (and resulting loss of use) but also loss of use of tangible property that is not physically injured — e.g., a contractor blocks access to a store, causing lost use without physical harm. This "pure loss of use" trigger is frequently tested.
Personal and advertising injury (CGL Coverage B) is a closed list of named offenses, not bodily harm:
| Offense | Example |
|---|---|
| False arrest/detention/imprisonment | Wrongful detention of a shoplifting suspect |
| Malicious prosecution | Baseless legal action |
| Wrongful eviction/entry/invasion of privacy | Improper lockout of a tenant |
| Slander/libel (oral/written disparagement) | Defaming a competitor |
| Use of another's advertising idea | Copying a slogan |
| Infringement of copyright, title, or slogan in an ad | Ad-related IP infringement |
Trap: personal/advertising injury covers these offenses, not bodily injury. Patent and trademark infringement are generally excluded — only specific advertising-related IP offenses are covered.
Which of the following is covered as a 'personal and advertising injury' offense under CGL Coverage B?
Trigger Theories and Why the Definitions Matter
The definitions of BI, PD, and personal/advertising injury determine which coverage part and which policy year responds. For long-tail injuries (toxic exposure, latent disease), courts apply trigger theories to decide which occurrence policies are on the risk:
| Trigger theory | Coverage attaches when... |
|---|---|
| Exposure | The claimant was first exposed |
| Manifestation | The injury became apparent/diagnosed |
| Continuous (triple) trigger | Every year from exposure through manifestation |
Because bodily injury includes "sickness or disease," a disease diagnosed years after exposure can implicate multiple occurrence policies. Property damage includes loss of use of property not physically harmed, expanding PD beyond visible damage. Personal and advertising injury is offense-based, so the trigger is when the offense is committed.
Exam tip: the breadth of these definitions is why occurrence vs. claims-made triggers and anti-concurrent-causation matter. Match the definition (BI = injury/sickness/disease; PD = physical damage or loss of use; P&AI = a named offense) to the correct coverage before selecting an answer.