Professional & operating liability

Professional and operating liability covers damage caused to third parties in the course of the company's activity — whether a professional fault (advice, execution or design error) or damage linked to day-to-day operations (material accident, injury to a third party).

In practice, operating liability covers « physical » risks of the activity — a dropped tool, plant damaging a fence — while professional liability covers the consequences of a craft or expertise error. Almost all construction and transport insurers sell both covers in one policy, because the two risks are rarely separable in practice.

For a construction company, it is an essential complement to decennial liability, which only covers structural damage over 10 years — professional & operating liability covers everything else: damage during works, injury to third parties, harm to neighbouring properties.

McLer compares limit levels and exclusions across insurers — an area where price dispersion for equivalent cover is especially wide.