How to Read a Liability Insurance Policy
![handle is hein.journals/hastlj13 and id is 197 raw text is: How to Read a Liability Insurance Policy
By GEORGE K. HAnTwicK*
THIS PAPER is intended to serve as an introduction to the legal
problems involved in the subject of public liability insurance, and to
offer some suggestions to a person faced with an insurance coverage
question for the first time. Necessarily, the discussion will be general,
and, while specific reference will be made only to the policies most
commcnly used, the suggestions made should be equally applicable to
all liability policies currently in use by insurers.
Most insurers use standard forms of liability policies. The two
forms in most general use are the comprehensive general liability
policy (the form issued to business enterprises) and the family auto-
mobile policy.'
These forms represent a modem approach to insurance. They are
packages of several kinds of coverages, which before these forms were
adopted had to be purchased separately. The comprehensive form, for
example, includes, for specified premiums, third party liability protec-
tion for premises-business operations, products liability, property
damage, and automobile liability. The family automobile policy is a
broad, recently adopted form, which is now almost uniformly issued
to individuals.
An insurance policy is, of course, a contract; but it is no longer
possible to approach an insurance problem simply by resort to the
law of contracts. A substantial body of law has developed which is
particularly applicable to contracts of insurance, and different from
that applicable to contracts generally. Any coverage question must be
examined in the light of this new body of rules.
The most significant of these rules is that a policy is to be inter-
preted against an insurer and in favor of an insured. The courts say
that a policy will be interpreted to afford coverage if it is semantically
permissable2 to do so.
The policies currently in use have developed over a period of years.
They are complex, since they are designed to cover a wide variety of
* LL.B. 1940, Hastings College of the Law; member, San Francisco, Matin County,
California, and American Bar Ass'ns; Federation of Insurance Counsel.
1 Forms of personal comprehensive liability insurance are also in general use; how-
ever, because of the nature of their coverage, they will not be discussed in this paper.
2 Continental Cas. Co. v. Phoenix Constr. Co., 46 Cal. 2d 423, 437, 296 P.2d 801,
809 (1956).
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How to Read a Liability Insurance Policy
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