Claims against the people who run the company, not against the company’s work.
Directors and officers liability covers claims that the people managing a business breached their duties, brought by investors, employees, regulators or competitors.
Tell us the situation.
One licensed human replies the same business day — not five agents, not an auto-responder. If the policy you have is already the right one, we will tell you.
We use this to quote and service your insurance, and we do not sell it or pass it to lead networks. Privacy policy.
Send us what you have. We’ll tell you if it’s right.
Your current policy paperwork, a renewal notice, or nothing at all. A licensed agent reads it and replies the same business day.
What directors and officers actually covers.
Breach of duty claims
Allegations of mismanagement, misrepresentation or breach of fiduciary duty.
Without it — Directors defend personally, and personal assets are on the table.
Regulatory investigations
The cost of responding to a regulator’s inquiry into the company’s management.
Without it — Defense costs arrive long before any finding does.
Entity coverage
Claims against the company itself alongside its officers, where scheduled.
Without it — A claim naming both is only half answered.
Where directors and officers shows up.
- Professional Services
Management decisions expose the personal assets of whoever made them, including at a private firm.
- Staffing & Temporary Employment Agencies
Fast-growing agencies take on investors, lenders and regulatory scrutiny that reach the people running them personally.
- Technology Companies
The moment you take institutional money, investors become a constituency that can sue the board, and D&O is what a priced round, a board seat and an acquisition each assume you already carry.
- Labels, Agents & Managers
Investors, partners and artists sue the company and its officers over how the business was run.
- Youth Sports & Leagues
A volunteer board makes decisions — selection, discipline, spending — and gets sued over them personally.
- HOAs & Condo Associations
Volunteer board members are exposed personally, and property coverage says nothing about it.
- Life Sciences
No serious investor joins a board without it, so this is a financing gate.
- Pharmaceutical
The claims that follow a bad safety announcement are securities claims.
- Fintech
A regulatory investigation reaches individuals directly.
- Nonprofits
Volunteer board members are personally exposed and hard to recruit without it.
- Private Schools
Independent school boards are volunteers making consequential decisions.
- Mortgage Brokers
A regulated business attracts examinations that cost money to answer.
- Cannabis
Licensing, disclosure and compliance claims land on individuals.
- Churches & Religious Organizations
Employment disputes with clergy and staff are the commonest D&O claim a congregation sees.
- Animal Shelters & Rescues
Rescue is a sector with strong opinions and frequent public disputes, and those become claims.
- Food Banks & Pantries
Grant-funded organizations have documented obligations, and falling short of one is a claim.
- Youth Sports Leagues
Youth sports boards are sued by parents with a frequency that surprises everyone on them.
- Social Services Nonprofits
Government and foundation funding comes with obligations that create documented duties.
- Arts & Cultural Nonprofits
Grant conditions and artistic direction are both frequent sources of board-level claims.
- Associations & Membership Organizations
The defining exposure: a member excluded from an association loses money, and sues the board.
- Charter Schools
A charter board is sued more like a public agency than a nonprofit, and its members serve without pay.
- The Hartford
One program, one renewal date, and the management lines a funded company is expected to carry.
- CNA
A serious professional firm needs a carrier that writes the professional exposure properly rather than as an add-on.
What clients with directors and officers ask us.
What will they want to see to quote it?
Your financials, and more of them than any other line asks for. A full profit and loss statement and a balance sheet, usually for the last two or three years, and for a funded company the cap table and the most recent round.
We are private and small. Is this for us?
It is bought most often by companies with outside investors, a board, or a nonprofit structure, but private-company D&O claims come mostly from employees, competitors and regulators rather than shareholders, and those exist at any size. If you have taken outside money or you have a board that includes anyone who is not an owner, it is worth pricing.
Is it the same as EPLI?
No, though they are often packaged together. Employment practices liability covers claims by employees about how they were treated. D&O covers claims about how the company was governed. A wrongful termination suit is EPLI; a claim that the board approved it negligently is D&O.
Does it cover decisions about our 401(k) or benefit plan?
Almost never. Standard D&O forms carry an explicit ERISA exclusion, and that is deliberate rather than an oversight. Decisions about a retirement plan are made as a fiduciary under ERISA, which imposes personal liability on the individuals who make them, and that exposure has its own policy. Employers who assume the D&O picks it up are usually wrong, and the people exposed are often the owner, the CFO and whoever in HR administers enrollment.
Commercial insurance is 96% of what we do — it is not a department here, it is the whole business. Not ready to talk? The guides answer the questions this page raises in more depth. Already insured with us and need a certificate or a policy change? Ask the service team rather than starting a quote — it is faster and it goes to the people whose job it is. We also write home and auto, which is usually cheaper alongside the business policy than apart from it.
Handed a lease, a vendor packet or a client contract with insurance requirements? Paste it into the COI Requirements Decoder to see what each one means for your business, or read what the requirements mean.