Corporate liability is a bundle rather than a product. It describes the liabilities a company carries as a legal person, and buying it well means knowing which of them sit with the company, which with the individuals who run it, and which with nobody insurable.
The company's own liabilities
A company is liable for injury and damage caused by its operations, for defective products it supplies, for the professional services it sells and for breaches of data protection. Those map onto public and products liability, professional indemnity and cyber, and they are insured as separate sections with separate limits. Nothing called corporate liability insurance replaces them; a broker using the phrase is normally describing a combined liability programme rather than a single wording.
Directors and officers, who are sued personally
Directors owe duties in their own name and can be sued personally for breach of duty, for wrongful trading, for health and safety failures and by regulators. Directors' and officers' cover answers for that personal exposure and for the defence costs, which arrive long before any finding. Company indemnities in the articles help and stop where the law stops them, which is why a company that indemnifies its board still buys the insurance.
What cannot be insured
Criminal fines and regulatory penalties imposed on a company are generally not insurable as a matter of public policy, and deliberate wrongdoing is excluded from every liability wording. That matters because the outcomes companies most fear, a large regulatory fine or a prosecution, are partly outside the insurance market. What is insurable is the defence cost, the civil claims that follow, and the investigation expense, which are substantial in their own right.
Employment claims and the mid sized gap
Claims by employees for discrimination, unfair dismissal or harassment are neither public liability nor employers' liability, which answers only for injury. They fall to employment practices liability, often sold inside a management liability package alongside directors' cover. Companies that have grown past a handful of staff without buying it are carrying the cost of defending tribunal claims themselves, and defence is most of the cost even where the claim fails.
Questions people ask about corporate liability insurance
Is corporate liability insurance a single policy?
No. It describes a combined programme: public and products liability, professional indemnity, cyber, and usually directors' and employment practices cover, each a separate section.
Can a company insure a regulatory fine?
Generally not. Fines and penalties are usually uninsurable as a matter of public policy, though defence and investigation costs normally are insurable.
What covers an employment tribunal claim?
Employment practices liability, often inside a management liability package. Employers' liability answers only for injury and illness.