Glossary
Taxes & Insurance
General Liability Insurance
The baseline commercial liability policy covering claims for bodily injury or property damage occurring on the property, and the coverage type most commercial leases explicitly permit landlords to pass through as CAM. Firms use general liability as the floor coverage to test which other policy lines a landlord may have improperly bundled into the same premium line.
Firm impact
Since general liability is almost universally recoverable, it rarely produces a finding on its own. Its real value to your firm is as the benchmark. Any coverage type billed alongside it that isn't general liability, property, or another lease-authorized category is where the overcharge usually lives.
How this gets abused
A landlord's insurance premium line combines general liability, umbrella, and directors and officers coverage into a single reported total, with no breakdown by policy type. The lease authorizes only general liability and property insurance, but the bundled figure makes it impossible to see what portion is actually recoverable without requesting the underlying policy documents.
Practitioner note
When a premium is reported as a single bundled figure, request the insurance broker's premium allocation or the individual policy declarations pages to separate general liability from any other coverage type included in the total.
FAQ
Questions about general liability insurance
Is general liability insurance always recoverable through CAM?
Almost always, since most commercial leases explicitly name it as a permitted coverage type. The audit question is usually whether other coverage types were bundled into the same line, not whether general liability itself belongs.
How can a firm tell if a premium includes more than general liability coverage?
Request the insurance declarations page or the broker's premium breakdown. A single combined premium figure with no coverage-type detail is a sign to ask for that documentation before accepting the charge.
Does CAMAudit's Insurance Overcharge rule check general liability lines too?
Yes. CAMAudit classifies every insurance line item, including general liability, against the coverage types the lease authorizes, so a bundled premium hiding an unauthorized coverage type still gets tested.
You know the term. Now check the math.
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