Facts about personal injury liability coverage exclusions

Many homeowners policies also include personal injury liability coverage. Under the ISO HO 3 policy, if an insured wishes to add personal injury coverage, it is added by an endorsement. In policies that include personal injury coverage within the basic policy form, the personal injury exclusions are intermingled with the bodily injury and property damage exclusions.

The ISO personal injury endorsement's insuring agreement contains the same duties to defend and indemnify as does the bodily injury and property damage insuring agreement. Some of the personal injury exclusions are substantially similar to several of the bodily injury and property damage exclusions. The personal injury exclusions are as follows, in the order in which they appear.

Intentional Acts

This exclusion precludes coverage for personal injury caused by or at the direction of an insured with knowledge the act would violate the rights of another and would inflict personal injury.

Knowledge of Falsity

This exclusion precludes coverage for personal injury arising out of oral or written publication of material, if done by or at the direction of an insured, with knowledge of its falsity. This is a specific example in the context of coverage for libel, slander, product disparagement, or invasion of privacy of conduct that also would be precluded under the expected or intended exclusion applicable to the bodily injury or property damage coverages.

Prior Publication

This exclusion precludes coverage for personal injury arising out of the oral or written publication of material whose first publication takes place before the policy. The prior publication exclusion is another one that applies to the defamation offenses and privacy violation offenses.

It recognizes that the same defamatory material or material that invades a person's right of privacy may be published several times. It provides, consistent with the personal injury insuring agreement, that coverage applies only to offenses that are first committed while the policy is in effect.

The law that determines whether a publication during the policy period, which contains material published prior to the policy period but varies in some way from the previous publication, is a sufficient basis to trigger the coverage and avoid the application of the first publication exclusion, varies state by state. This is a highly factually dependent inquiry in which the outcome will vary from case to case.

Criminal Acts

This exclusion precludes coverage for personal injury arising out of criminal acts committed by or at the direction of an insured. In the context of the applicable personal injury coverage offenses, this exclusion is more likely to be applicable to the false imprisonment, wrongful entry, or eviction categories of personal injury offenses than it is to the defamation categories of personal injury offenses.

1. Contractual liability and owned property exclusions apply to liability coverage
Contractual liability This exclusion applies only to the liability coverage. It does not apply to the medical payments coverages. The contractual liability excl...

2. Duties that apply to the insured in case of an occurrence
This condition comprises six subparagraphs. First, the duties after occurrence condition has an introductory paragraph that states that in case of an occurrence, an ins...

3. Liability policies include the provision of bankruptcy of the insured
Bankruptcy of an insured This provision is required to be included in liability policies in many states. It provides that the bankruptcy or insolvency of an ins...

4. Insurance coverages have various conditions that apply to them
Cancellation The cancellation condition in the standard ISO HO 3 homeowners policy is often superseded by specific states' statutory limitations on cancellation...

5. Structure of the standard personal car insurance policy
Structure of personal car insurance policies As with homeowners policies, there is a standard personal car insurance policy published by the Insurance Services ...

6. Concepts of the personal car insurance policy are very complex
The concepts embraced by this definition contained in the ISO personal auto policy are relatively complex. Most of these concepts appear in one form or another in the p...

7. Purpose of insurance coverage exclusion for owned or rented property
Insurance coverage for owned or transported property This exclusion precludes coverage for property damage to property owned or being transported by the insured...

8. Provisions applicable specifically to auto liability coverages
Car insurance limit of liability The ISO personal auto policy limit of liability condition is quite simple. It provides that the per accident limit of liability...

9. Rented and borrowed vehicles and car insurance exclusions
Unrated Vehicles Exclusion The definition of your covered vehicle encompasses not only the rated and described vehicles in the declarations, but also rented and...