As a manufacturer, one of the most potentially damaging things that can happen to your business is product defect or flaw. If a manufacturing defect, design flaw, or a failure-to-warn for either occurs, your business could be held liable for damages by the consumer or other businesses affected. To ensure you are protected against such claims and that a small mistake doesn’t cause irreparable damage to your company, product liability insurance is a must.

Product liability insurance is most often applicable to manufacturers who have built and sold the good implied in a suit, but it can also affect product sellers such as retailers, distributors, resellers, and wholesalers. If these companies help to market the product to the consumer and is considered to have been negligent in line with the suit, the seller may be obligated to pay damages, and in turn file suit against the manufacturer. Because of the nature of this type of relationship, Product Liability insurance is an important protection for anyone selling, distributing, or manufacturing goods.

Strict liability refers to liability that exists in the absence of negligence, meaning no fault is necessarily required. For a plaintiff to win such a suit, they simply must show that the product was defective to the point of dangerous, that it injured the plaintiff, that the plaintiff was using the product as intended, and that no substantial changes were made to the product by the consumer.

Coverage for these types of damages are sometimes covered under a General Liability Policy, but depending on the nature of the business may need to be acquired separately.