Can Your Umbrella Meet a Customer’s Higher Tech E&O Limit?
Not automatically. Before counting an umbrella toward a customer’s higher Tech E&O limit, confirm that its wording supplies additional limits for the relevant technology professional-liability claims. The practical conclusion from the insurer descriptions below is that additional casualty limits are not automatically additional Tech E&O limits—but neither does every umbrella necessarily exclude professional liability.
By Atlas Risk Partners ·
1. Separate the Tech E&O requirement from other liability limits
Travelers describes its commercial umbrella as supplementing general liability, auto liability and employers liability. Chubb separately explains professional liability, or E&O, as protection against claims that professional mistakes or service failures caused customer financial harm. These descriptions support treating the coverages separately when reviewing a limit requirement.
Create an internal worksheet with separate rows for Tech E&O, general liability and umbrella. Record the current limit, requested limit, applicable per-claim or aggregate wording, and deadline. Do not substitute a total of all liability limits for the answer to a coverage-specific requirement.
Ask the person responsible for contract approval whether the customer accepts a combination of primary and excess insurance for this particular Tech E&O obligation. Keep that acceptance question separate from whether the proposed policies provide the intended protection.
Sources: Travelers: Commercial Umbrella and Excess Liability Insurance · Chubb: What Is Professional Liability or E&O Insurance?
2. Find the wording connecting the umbrella to Tech E&O
Avoid assuming that every umbrella covers professional liability—or that none can. Travelers’ excess casualty page identifies the ability to provide umbrella or excess coverage for miscellaneous professional liability. That product-specific capability does not establish coverage for a particular software company’s technology E&O exposure.
Ask your broker to identify the underlying-insurance provisions, relevant professional-services exclusions and any endorsements affecting the proposed extension. Request an explanation tied to the wording: Which provision supplies additional limits for claims under our technology E&O coverage?
Record the answer as confirmed, unavailable or unresolved, with the supporting provision beside it. Treat an unresolved connection as an open purchasing question rather than counting the umbrella limit toward the proposed Tech E&O structure.
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