Public and products liability

A company's general liability splits along a simple criterion: control. The public liability side covers damage caused to third parties during operations, on premises or on a site: a visitor who falls, an employee who damages a customer's property during a job, debris hitting a nearby vehicle. The products side, also called products liability, covers damage caused by a product once delivered or by a service once completed, when the company no longer has custody of it: the appliance that catches fire at the buyer's home, the defective part built into a machine, the electrical installation that starts a fire after handover. The two sides have neither the same profile nor the same limit. Operations produce frequent claims of known severity. Products produce rarer claims, sometimes serial when one defect affects a whole production run, and often international once the company exports. The English-speaking market reads it two ways: public and products liability in the United Kingdom, premises operations and products-completed operations in the United States. Replacement of the defective product itself and recall costs generally remain excluded, as they belong to a separate cover.