Short answer: the two exposures that define a print shop — liability for content you reproduce on someone else's instructions, and the customer's paper, artwork and files on your floor — are handled awkwardly by a standard commercial package. The general liability form's advertising-injury section is narrower than its name suggests, and the property form was never written to be a bailee policy. Both gaps are closable, but only if someone asks for them by name.
Our printing and publishing insurance overview names both; this article is about the policy language behind them.
Coverage B is about your advertisement, not your customer's
Coverage A of a general liability policy handles bodily injury and property damage. Coverage B handles "personal and advertising injury" — not a general grant but a defined list of offenses. In ISO form CG 00 01 that list runs to seven, two of them intellectual property: the use of another's advertising idea in your "advertisement", and infringing upon another's copyright, trade dress or slogan in your "advertisement".
Those three words carry the weight. The same form defines "advertisement" as a notice broadcast or published to the general public or specific market segments about your goods, products or services to attract customers or supporters. So when you run forty thousand brochures and the photography turns out to be licensed to somebody else, the brochure is a notice about the client's goods and services — not yours.
A separate exclusion points the same way: Coverage B excludes injury arising out of infringement of copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights, then writes back infringement, in your "advertisement", of copyright, trade dress or slogan. The write-back is bounded by the same phrase as the offense it restores. IRMI notes that case law on that wording — narrowed in 1998 from the older "in the course of advertising" — remains thin, so treat this as unsettled.
The exclusion written with publishers in mind
If the shop puts anything out under its own imprint, a second provision matters more. Coverage B excludes personal and advertising injury committed by an insured whose business is advertising, broadcasting, publishing or telecasting; designing or determining the content of websites for others; or acting as an internet search, access, content or service provider. It carves out only the first three offenses — false arrest, malicious prosecution and wrongful eviction — precisely the three a publisher never faces. The libel, privacy and advertising-idea offenses, the ones that actually visit publishers, are removed.
Whether a business "is" publishing is a fact question: a shop running to customer specification is not in the same position as a house that commissions and issues its own titles. A shop doing both should expect an underwriter to weigh it.
The market answer is a media liability form — which IRMI describes as errors and omissions insurance for publishers and media firms, typically written on a named-perils basis reaching defamation, invasion of privacy, copyright infringement and plagiarism. It sits in professional liability and E&O territory, not general liability.
Your customer's indemnity is not your insurance
Most shops operate under printing trade customs that put the copyright warranty on the customer: the customer warrants the material is not somebody else's, and indemnifies the shop against copyright, proprietary-rights, libel and privacy claims — commonly except where the shop contributed.
That clause is worth having, but it is not coverage. An indemnity is only as good as the party giving it, and a small client facing a rights-holder's demand may not be able to fund your defense.
The liability form also has its own view of contracts. Coverage B excludes injury arising out of a breach of contract, with a narrow exception for an implied contract to use another's advertising idea in your advertisement, and separately excludes injury for which the insured has assumed liability in a contract, except liability it would have had anyway. If your sales terms hand an indemnity the other way — to a large customer — that assumed liability is squarely in the frame.
Customer property and work in process on the floor
Supplied stock, artwork, plates, dies and press-ready files are other people's property, in your building, being worked on.
General liability is the wrong place to look. Coverage A excludes property damage to personal property in the care, custody or control of the insured, and to that particular part of any property that must be restored, repaired or replaced because your work was incorrectly performed on it. It also excludes damages arising out of loss of, damage to or corruption of electronic data — what a customer's job files are.
Commercial property does better than operators expect, but within limits. The standard building and personal property form lists Personal Property Of Others in your care, custody or control as covered property — but it must be scheduled with its own limit, it is tied to the described premises, payment runs for the account of the owner, and it responds only to a covered cause of loss. A fire is one. Ruining a run on press is not.
That seam is what bailee coverage fills: IRMI defines it as inland marine coverage on property entrusted to the insured for storage, repair or servicing, following the property rather than the premises. Two details ride alongside:
- Valuation. Stock includes in-process goods, valued at actual cash value — except stock you have sold but not delivered, valued at selling price less discounts and expenses you would otherwise have had. Whether a half-finished job counts as sold changes the number.
- Files and records. The cost to research, replace or restore information on valuable papers and records, including on electronic media, is property not covered except through a coverage extension carrying a small default sublimit. Prepress files are exactly that. Cyber insurance answers a different failure mode — liability and restoration after a breach, not physical loss.
The press itself
Equipment breakdown is a plain hole, not a subtlety. The commercial property special-form causes of loss excludes mechanical breakdown, and separately excludes damage from artificially generated electrical, magnetic or electromagnetic energy that damages or disrupts an electrical or electronic device, system or network. A modern press is both: motors and moving parts, plus drives and control panels. Equipment breakdown coverage puts that peril back, generally with business income tied to it — and where one press carries most of the volume, it is not optional. Our wholesale and distribution coverage guide works through the parallel issue for warehouses.
Frequently Asked Questions
We only print to customer specification. Do we still need media coverage? Worth a conversation, not an assumption. The advertising-injury offenses are written around your own advertisement, and it is not obvious that reproducing a client's material fits. That does not mean such a claim would fail — only that you should not assume the policy settles it.
Does our customer indemnity handle copyright claims? It allocates the risk contractually, standard in printing trade customs, but it does not create insurance. It depends on the customer's ability to pay, commonly carves out matters the shop contributed to, and the liability form has its own contract exclusions.
We print for clients and also put out our own catalog. Does that matter? It can. Coverage B carries an exclusion aimed at insureds whose business is advertising, broadcasting, publishing or telecasting, and it removes the offenses a publisher is most likely to face. Disclose the imprint work rather than letting an underwriter find it later.
Does scheduling Personal Property Of Others replace bailee coverage? They are not the same thing. That property item is tied to the described premises and responds only to a covered cause of loss. Bailee coverage can address property entrusted to you. Check its covered locations, transit provisions, valuation and exclusions; protection does not automatically follow the goods everywhere.
Have both gaps checked
If you would rather someone read the policy with you — the Coverage B exclusions, whether Personal Property Of Others carries a limit, whether equipment breakdown is on the form — that is a short conversation. See our commercial insurance overview, then request a review or get in touch.
General information, not legal or insurance advice. Coverage, endorsements, exclusions and limits vary by carrier and by policy, and whether any particular claim is covered depends on the policy language and the facts.