What is the difference between general liability and professional liability?
General liability covers physical harm, meaning bodily injury and property damage your business causes to other people. Professional liability, also sold as errors and omissions, covers financial harm caused by your work, advice or service being wrong.
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The detail
General liability covers bodily injury and property damage to third parties, along with personal and advertising injury offenses.
Professional liability covers claims arising from the rendering of, or failure to render, professional services.
Errors and omissions is another name for the same coverage rather than a different product, with usage varying by industry.
General liability policies exclude claims arising from professional services, which is the gap professional liability exists to fill.
What this means for you
- Ask what the client lost, not what you did wrong. A visitor who trips in your office lost their health, which is general liability. A client whose project failed because your advice was wrong lost money, which is professional liability.
- The exclusion is the whole point. A general liability policy carries a professional services exclusion, so buying more general liability limit does nothing for the risk your work is wrong. Two policies are not duplication here, they are two different holes.
- The two are usually written on different forms. General liability is normally occurrence and professional liability is normally claims-made, which means they behave differently when you cancel one.
- Contracts often ask for both by different names. An agreement naming "E&O" and one naming "professional liability" are asking for the same policy, and an agreement naming "liability insurance" without qualification usually means general liability.
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Related questions
- Is errors and omissions the same as professional liability?
Yes, in almost every practical sense. The industry uses errors and omissions for technology, insurance and real estate work and professional liability for consultants and licensed professions, while doctors and lawyers usually say malpractice. All three describe coverage for financial harm caused by your professional work, and the wording of the specific policy matters far more than which of the three names is on the cover.
- We are consultants with no office visitors. Do we still need general liability?
Usually yes, and rarely for the reason people expect. Client contracts and office leases require it as standard, and the exposure follows you to their site rather than waiting at yours, so damaging a client's equipment or injuring somebody in their building is a general liability claim. It is also among the cheapest policies a service business buys.
- Does a business owners policy include professional liability?
No. A business owners policy bundles general liability with property coverage, and professional liability is added separately or bought on its own. That is one of the two or three most common gaps we find when reading a policy somebody already owns.
- What a BOP does and does not include
Need this handled?
Reading about it and having it handled are different jobs, and the second one is ours. We place the accounts other brokers decline — claims history, a cancellation, an unusual operation, a business nobody wants to underwrite twice — and we will tell you when the policy you already have is the right one. Tell us the situation and a licensed human replies the same business day.
Written by the licensed brokers at Boring Insurance. Last updated 2026-09-09. See all guides.