Your contract asks for coverage. Your GL has to answer correctly.

General Liability Insurance is the foundation commercial liability coverage that protects your business against third-party bodily injury, property damage, personal and advertising injury, and limited medical payments arising from your operations, premises, or completed operations. The Insurance Services Office standard form is the Commercial General Liability form CG 00 01. Coverage A covers bodily injury and property damage. Coverage B covers personal and advertising injury. Coverage C covers medical payments. Defense costs are typically paid in addition to the limit. The policy is occurrence-based, meaning the policy in force when the injury or damage occurs responds regardless of when the claim is reported.

An Additional Insured endorsement extends General Liability coverage to a third party (typically a general contractor, landlord, or project owner) that your contract requires you to cover. The form variant on the endorsement decides what scope of coverage applies. CG 20 10 covers the additional insured for ongoing operations only. CG 20 37 covers products and completed operations (claims reported after the work is finished). CG 20 38 (2013 ISO blanket version) covers any party required by written contract. Older blanket forms have narrower coverage. Most Texas construction and lease disputes turn on which form variant is in the policy, not whether an endorsement exists.

Texas Insurance Code Chapter 151 is the Texas Anti-Indemnity Act. The statute limits broad-form indemnification in construction contracts. A construction contract cannot require an indemnitor to defend or indemnify another party for that party's own negligence in most circumstances. The interaction with CGL is significant. An Additional Insured endorsement that would otherwise extend coverage to a general contractor for the contractor's own negligence may be limited by Chapter 151. The McDade General Liability Review evaluates the contract indemnity language alongside the CGL Additional Insured endorsement to identify whether the coverage you assumed exists actually exists under Texas law.

A General Liability policy typically has a per-occurrence limit (the maximum the policy pays for any one claim) and a general aggregate limit (the maximum the policy pays across all claims during the policy year). A 1,000,000 dollar per-occurrence and 2,000,000 dollar general aggregate policy can pay 1,000,000 dollars for any single claim and up to 2,000,000 dollars total across the year. Products-completed operations typically has a separate aggregate limit. Personal and advertising injury has a separate limit per offense. The McDade Review evaluates whether the limit structure matches your operational exposure and contract requirements.

The Stowers Doctrine comes from the 1929 Texas Supreme Court decision in Stowers Furniture Company v. American Indemnity Company. The doctrine requires liability insurers to settle within policy limits when a reasonable insurer would do so. If the carrier refuses to settle within limits and the case ultimately produces a judgment above limits, the carrier can be liable for the full judgment beyond the policy limits. The Stowers demand is a standard Texas pre-trial document that triggers the carrier's duty. The doctrine protects insureds from carrier overconfidence at trial. Texas commercial carriers structure their claims practices around Stowers.

Common CGL exclusions include pollution, mold, asbestos, professional liability (Errors and Omissions), employer's liability and workers compensation (covered by WC policy), auto liability (covered by Commercial Auto), expected or intended injury, contractual liability except for insured contracts, damage to your own work or product, liquor liability for businesses serving alcohol, communicable disease (added broadly post-2020), and electronic data and cyber exposures (covered by Cyber Liability policies). Most Texas businesses fill these exclusion gaps with separate policies.

GL premium starts with the carrier's class code rate per 1,000 dollars of exposure base (which is typically annual revenue, payroll, or square footage depending on the business class). The premium is multiplied by the carrier's schedule rating modifier (carrier underwriter discretion for risk quality), then adjusted by experience rating where applicable, then any program credits (loss control program, safety committee, contractor licensing). Construction-related GL is typically rated on payroll because payroll correlates with operations exposure. Retail and office GL is typically rated on annual revenue or square footage. Misclassification at the class code level produces the most common Texas GL overpayment.

The McDade General Liability Review is an audit of the policyholder's existing GL policy by Dallas Downey, CLCS. The review evaluates three primary areas. First, the Additional Insured endorsement form variants on the current policy, with specific attention to whether the form matches what your contracts actually require. Second, the indemnity provisions in your active contracts against the Texas Anti-Indemnity Act (Chapter 151), identifying provisions that may be unenforceable or that create unfunded risk. Third, the limit structure (per-occurrence, general aggregate, products-completed operations aggregate, personal injury per offense) against your operational exposure. About 40 percent of the time the review confirms the current carrier and policy structure are correct. The other 60 percent identifies endorsement gaps, contract language exposures, or carrier restructuring opportunities.

No. Claims by your own employees for on-the-job injuries are excluded from General Liability and are the function of Workers Compensation. The Employer's Liability exclusion on the CGL form is explicit. If you are a Texas subscriber to Workers Compensation, your WC policy responds to employee injury claims. If you are a Texas non-subscriber (the optional path Texas allows), you face civil court exposure for employee injury claims that your GL does not cover. The McDade team coordinates Workers Compensation and General Liability programs because the two policies sit next to each other in the same commercial program.

Dallas Downey, CLCS leads the McDade commercial insurance team including General Liability. Dallas holds the Certified Lines Coverage Specialist designation and routes commercial conversations through a dedicated commercial meeting calendar. The McDade office serves the Houston metropolitan area including Spring, Klein, Tomball, Cypress, The Woodlands, Conroe, Humble, Katy, and Bridgeland, plus all of Texas through Premier Group Insurance carrier access including 50+ top Texas carriers we know well. McDade Insurance Brokerage Group is licensed by the Texas Department of Insurance (Texas License 2539471). Schedule a commercial review with Dallas through the commercial routing on this page or call the McDade office at 281.378.5002.