How to Read the CG 00 01 Commercial General Liability Coverage Form

The CG 00 01 commercial general liability coverage form is the standard ISO document that sits at the core of nearly every commercial general liability policy issued by an admitted carrier in the United States. It is an occurrence-based form that promises to pay sums the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages for third-party bodily injury, property damage, and personal and advertising injury, and to defend suits seeking those damages. The most widely used edition is CG 00 01 04 13, though some carriers still file older versions. Reading it well means understanding three things: what triggers coverage, which exclusions pull it back, and which limits apply to which claim.

What Triggers Coverage

The CG 00 01 responds when bodily injury or property damage happens during the policy period, regardless of when the claim is filed. A policy running January through December 2026 answers for a slip-and-fall that occurs in November 2026 even if the lawsuit arrives in 2028. This is the defining feature that separates it from the claims-made CG 00 02, where the claim itself must be reported during the policy period or an extended reporting window.

The form defines an “occurrence” as an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions.¹ That second clause does real work. It is what allows coverage for gradual damage like a slow water leak that ruins a tenant’s inventory over several months. A single sudden event and a drawn-out exposure to the same harmful condition are both occurrences.

Coverage A: Bodily Injury and Property Damage

Coverage A is the heart of the form. The insurer agrees to pay sums the insured becomes legally obligated to pay as damages because of bodily injury or property damage to which the insurance applies, and has the right and duty to defend any suit seeking those damages, even if the allegations are groundless.¹ Defense costs are paid outside the policy limits. That is a significant financial benefit policyholders routinely undervalue.

Bodily injury means physical harm, sickness, or disease sustained by a person, including death that results from any of those. Property damage has two branches: physical injury to tangible property, including the resulting loss of use, and loss of use of tangible property that isn’t physically injured, provided the loss stems from a covered occurrence. The second branch is what responds when your faulty product shuts down a customer’s production line without physically breaking anything.

The Pollution Exclusion

The standard pollution exclusion removes coverage for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the discharge, dispersal, release, or escape of pollutants. The form defines pollutants broadly: any solid, liquid, gaseous, or thermal irritant or contaminant, including smoke, vapor, soot, fumes, acids, alkalis, chemicals, and waste.

Two exceptions survive in the base form. Injury or damage caused by heat, smoke, or fumes from a hostile fire — one that becomes uncontrollable or breaks out from where it was intended to be — remains covered. There is also an exception for fuels, lubricants, and other operating fluids that escape from mobile equipment, as long as those fluids leak from a part designed to contain them and weren’t intentionally released.¹ Businesses with meaningful environmental exposure — manufacturing, waste hauling, chemical storage — generally need a separate pollution liability policy.

Your Product and Your Work

The “your product” exclusion bars coverage for damage to the insured’s own product. If you manufacture a defective valve and it fails, the cost to replace that valve isn’t covered. Damage the valve causes to the customer’s equipment is a different question and generally stays covered.

The “your work” exclusion generally bars coverage for damage to the insured’s own completed work. The important carve-back: if the damaged work was performed by a subcontractor on the insured’s behalf, the exclusion does not apply.² A general contractor whose subcontractor’s defective drywall work requires demolition and replacement has coverage for that damage. This is a major reason general contractors verify that their subs carry adequate CGL limits.

Electronic Data

The form states that electronic data is not tangible property and removes coverage for damages arising out of loss, corruption, or inability to access electronic data.³ This exclusion alone is why every business handling customer data needs a separate cyber liability policy.

Contractual Liability and the Insured Contract Exception

The contractual liability exclusion sounds absolute. It removes coverage for liability the insured assumes under any contract or agreement. In practice, a broad exception swallows most of its bite. The form defines “insured contract” to include leases, sidetrack agreements, easement and license agreements, elevator maintenance agreements, municipal obligations required by ordinance, and, critically, any contract where the insured assumes the tort liability of another party for bodily injury or property damage to a third person.¹

That last category is what makes most standard indemnification clauses in commercial contracts insurable under the CG 00 01. When a general contractor requires a subcontractor to indemnify it for the sub’s negligence, the sub’s CGL policy typically covers that obligation through the insured contract definition. The exception does not apply to indemnification of architects, engineers, or surveyors for their professional services, or to certain railroad operations within 50 feet of railroad property.¹

Other Exclusions Worth Knowing

The expected or intended injury exclusion removes coverage when the insured deliberately causes harm. If the act involves reasonable force used to protect persons or property, the exclusion does not apply. The liquor liability exclusion applies only to businesses in the business of manufacturing, distributing, selling, or serving alcoholic beverages. A restaurant that hands a complimentary glass of wine to a customer at a holiday event is generally not “in the business of” serving alcohol; a bar obviously is.¹ The workers’ compensation exclusion directs employee injury claims to a separate workers’ comp policy.

Products-Completed Operations

The products-completed operations hazard is one of the most important and most misunderstood pieces of the CG 00 01. It covers bodily injury and property damage that occurs after your product has been sold or your work has been completed and you’ve left the job site. A contractor who installs plumbing that fails weeks later, flooding a building, is looking at a products-completed operations claim, not a premises-operations claim.

The distinction matters because the form tracks these claims under a separate aggregate limit. Products-completed operations claims do not erode the general aggregate; they draw from their own dedicated pool.¹ A business working through a string of product claims still has its full general aggregate available for slip-and-fall or other premises claims.

Coverage B: Personal and Advertising Injury

Coverage B addresses non-physical harms, meaning offenses against a person’s rights or reputation committed in the course of business. Covered offenses include false arrest, detention, or imprisonment; malicious prosecution; wrongful eviction or wrongful entry into a room or dwelling; and oral or written publication of material that slanders, libels, or disparages a person’s goods, products, or services.¹ Copyright infringement committed in the insured’s advertisement is also covered.

Coverage triggers only when the offense is committed during the policy period, within the coverage territory, and in the course of the insured’s business. The most important exclusion is the knowing violation exclusion: if the insured publishes material knowing it is false, or commits an offense knowing it violates another’s rights, Coverage B does not respond. Coverage B claims fall under the general aggregate limit along with Coverage A premises-operations claims and Coverage C medical payments. There is no separate aggregate for Coverage B.

Coverage C: Medical Payments

Coverage C is a no-fault provision designed to resolve minor injuries quickly before they turn into lawsuits. It pays reasonable medical expenses for bodily injury caused by an accident on premises the insured owns or rents, or arising out of the insured’s operations, regardless of fault. Covered expenses include first aid, medical and surgical treatment, X-rays, dental work, ambulance service, hospital stays, and funeral services.¹

Expenses must be incurred and reported within one year of the accident date.¹ Coverage C does not apply to any insured under the policy, to injuries sustained during athletic activities, or to injuries on premises the insured owns but has rented to others. Limits are modest, often $5,000 or $10,000 per person, but prompt payment of a visitor’s emergency room bill often prevents a far larger Coverage A claim.

Coverage Territory

The form’s geographic reach is broader than most policyholders assume. The primary coverage territory includes the United States and its territories, Puerto Rico, and Canada. International waters and airspace are also covered, as long as the injury or damage doesn’t occur during travel to a destination outside that primary zone.¹

Worldwide coverage exists only in two narrow situations: the injury or damage arises out of products you made or sold within the primary territory, or it arises out of the activities of someone whose home is in that territory and who is traveling briefly on your business. Even then, the claim must be resolved through a suit decided on the merits in the primary territory, or through a settlement the insurer agrees to.¹ A business with significant overseas operations needs a separate international liability policy.

Who Qualifies as an Insured

Section II defines insured status based on how the named insured’s business is organized. If the named insured is an individual, coverage extends to that person’s spouse with respect to the business. For partnerships and joint ventures, each partner or member is an insured but only for activities within the scope of the business. Corporations and LLCs extend insured status to executive officers, directors, stockholders, and members while they act in their official capacity.¹

Employees and volunteer workers are insureds for acts within the scope of their employment or duties. That coverage has limits. It does not extend to bodily injury or personal injury against a co-employee in the course of employment, and it is generally excess over any other valid insurance the employee carries if the incident involves a vehicle they own. The policy also does not cover employees for property damage to property owned or occupied by, or loaned to, the named insured.

Newly Acquired Organizations

When a named insured acquires or forms a new organization and maintains ownership or a majority interest, the CG 00 01 automatically extends coverage to that new entity. The automatic coverage lasts for 90 days from the date the organization is acquired or formed, or until the policy period ends, whichever comes first.⁴ Joint ventures are excluded from this automatic extension. The coverage applies only to injuries, damage, or offenses occurring after the acquisition date, and it does not apply if the new entity already has its own similar liability policy in force. Businesses that acquire other companies need to notify the insurer and endorse the new entity onto the policy before the 90-day window closes.

Limits of Insurance

The limits structure has more moving parts than a single coverage number suggests. Knowing which aggregate governs which claim is where most confusion arises.

General aggregate limit. The maximum the insurer will pay for the combined total of Coverage A claims (excluding products-completed operations), Coverage B claims, and Coverage C medical payments during the policy period.¹
Products-completed operations aggregate limit. A separate maximum for all Coverage A claims within the products-completed operations hazard.¹
Each occurrence limit. The most the insurer will pay for all damages arising from any single occurrence, regardless of which aggregate it falls under.
Personal and advertising injury limit. The most available for any one person or organization under Coverage B.
Fire damage limit. A sublimit for property damage to premises rented to the insured or temporarily occupied with the owner’s permission, arising from any one fire. Exclusions C through N under Coverage A do not apply to fire damage to rented premises, which effectively provides broader coverage for this specific scenario.¹
Medical expense limit. A per-person cap on Coverage C payments.

The limits apply regardless of the number of insureds, the number of claims, or the number of people making claims.¹ A common policy might show $1,000,000 per occurrence, $2,000,000 general aggregate, $2,000,000 products-completed operations aggregate, $100,000 fire damage, and $5,000 medical expense per person. All of these figures are negotiable at underwriting.

What the Form Does Not Cover

Knowing the boundaries matters as much as knowing the grants. Several common business risks sit entirely outside the CG 00 01.

Professional errors. The base CG 00 01 does not contain an automatic professional services exclusion, but professional errors are not generally covered. Coverage A only responds to bodily injury or property damage caused by an occurrence. A consultant’s bad advice that causes purely financial loss, with no physical injury and no damage to tangible property, does not trigger the form. Businesses providing professional services need a separate errors and omissions policy.⁵
Cyber and data breach liability. The form defines electronic data as not tangible property and excludes damages arising from loss or corruption of electronic data. A data breach or ransomware attack is not a CGL claim.³
Employee injuries. Directed to workers’ compensation and employers’ liability policies.
Auto liability. Vehicles are excluded and covered under commercial auto policies.
Pollution. Outside the narrow hostile fire and mobile-equipment-fluids exceptions, pollution claims require a dedicated environmental or pollution liability policy.

Endorsements That Change the Deal

The base CG 00 01 is rarely issued without endorsements. Some expand coverage, some restrict it, and the restrictive ones don’t always announce themselves loudly.

Additional insured endorsements are the most frequently requested modification. Landlords, general contractors, and project owners routinely require that they be added as additional insureds on a tenant’s or subcontractor’s CGL policy. ISO publishes several versions, and the differences determine whether coverage is limited to ongoing operations or extends to completed operations. A waiver of subrogation endorsement prevents the insurer from pursuing the additional insured to recover paid claims, which is a standard requirement in commercial leases and construction contracts. A primary and noncontributory endorsement ensures the insured’s CGL responds first, before any policy the additional insured carries on its own.

On the restrictive side, the total pollution exclusion endorsement (CG 21 98) replaces the standard pollution exclusion with a broader version that eliminates nearly all pollution coverage, retaining only the hostile fire exception.⁶ Classification limitation endorsements restrict coverage to only the specific business activities listed in the declarations. Damage-to-work-performed-by-subcontractors endorsements can remove the subcontractor exception to the “your work” exclusion, which is a significant narrowing for any general contractor. Before accepting the policy, read every endorsement listed on the declarations page against the base form; that is where the actual scope of coverage lives.

1
Insurance Services Office, Inc. Commercial General Liability Coverage Form
2
IRMI. Faulty Work and the CGL
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Insurance Services Office, Inc. Commercial General Liability Coverage Form
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Law Insider. Automatic Coverage-Newly Acquired Organizations
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IRMI. The CGL and the Professional Liability Exclusion
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Insurance Xdate. Total Pollution Exclusion Endorsement