If you provide consultative or advisory services in the course of work, someone might claim you injured them financially, even though no property or bodily harm occurred. These kinds of claims usually fall outside your commercial general liability coverage. In fact, professional services are often explicitly excluded from that policy.
You need “errors and omissions” insurance, a professional liability policy that provides legal defense coverage if your advice is erroneous (or judged to be so by your client) and leads to financial losses for the person you counseled.
Professional liability insurance is often associated with lawyers, engineers, architects and physicians. But those are not the only sectors where advice is part of the services rendered. Landscapers, financial advisors, technology firms and business consultants, among others, also may need an errors and omissions, or E&O, insurance policy.
What you might consider off-handed opinions could, in the context of a customer or client meeting, be taken as authoritative counsel. Keep signed records of all advice, consent and waivers.
