Professional vs general liability: the difference most executives miss

General liability (known in France as "RC exploitation") covers the damage your company causes to third parties in its day-to-day life, outside the service itself: a visitor who falls in your offices, an employee who damages a client's equipment. Professional liability ("RC professionnelle") covers damage caused by the service: wrong advice, a bug shipped to production, a poorly executed assignment. They are two distinct covers, often housed in the same policy but with different limits, deductibles and exclusions. In our audits, most executives believe they have "a liability policy" that covers everything; in practice, one of the two is missing or undersized.

What exactly is general liability (RC exploitation)?

General liability (RC exploitation, sometimes called RC générale) is the cover that compensates bodily injury, property damage and financial loss caused to third parties by the existence and operation of the business: its premises, equipment, employees, travel and events. It answers the general duty to repair harm caused to others, laid down in Article 1240 of the French Civil Code, and the employer's liability for the acts of its employees (Article 1242, paragraph 5).

The key phrase is "outside the service". A consulting firm whose consultant spills coffee on a client's server during a meeting is a general liability matter; the same consultant delivering a wrong recommendation is a professional liability matter. General liability is not legally compulsory, but the liability itself is always there.

What is professional liability, and how is it different?

Professional liability (RC Pro) is the cover that compensates third parties, usually your clients, for damage resulting from a fault, error, omission or delay in performing your service or delivering your product. It notably covers so-called "pure" financial loss, meaning money lost by the client with no prior bodily injury or property damage: revenue lost because your software was unavailable, penalties incurred because a deliverable was late.

RC Pro is compulsory for around thirty regulated professions (healthcare professionals under Article L1142-2 of the Public Health Code, lawyers, chartered accountants, real estate agents under the Hoguet Act, insurance intermediaries, builders under Article L241-1 of the Insurance Code, travel agents). For everyone else, SaaS vendors, IT services firms, consultancies, agencies, it is optional in law but required by contract in almost every tender and every enterprise agreement.

Where is the line between general and professional liability? Two examples

Take a 40-person SaaS vendor. A client visits the offices and is injured on the stairs: general liability. A faulty release takes the platform down for 48 hours and the client claims its losses: professional liability. A developer on site at a client unplugs a physical server by mistake and destroys a disk: general liability, because the damage does not come from the software delivered but from a physical act on the client's premises.

Now take an on-site services company, say in industrial maintenance. A technician drops a tool on a client's machine during a break: general liability. The same technician misconfigures the machine, which produces non-compliant parts for a week: professional liability.

A company does not have "a liability policy". It has a liability for what it is, and a liability for what it does; each is read on a different line of the contract.

How do the two covers trigger over time?

General liability usually works on an "occurrence" basis: it covers claims whose triggering event occurs during the policy period, whatever the date of the claim. Professional liability most often works on a "claims-made" basis: it covers claims received during the policy period or during the extended reporting period, for events that predate cancellation.

The extended reporting period (garantie subséquente) is the time after the policy ends during which the insurer keeps handling claims linked to events that occurred while the policy was in force. Article L124-5 of the French Insurance Code imposes a minimum of five years for claims-made policies, extended to ten years for certain regulated professions.

How much do general and professional liability cost an SME?

The two covers are usually priced together, based on turnover, declared activity, headcount and the limits chosen. For a services SME with 20 to 50 employees, the ranges observed in 2026 run from €1,000 to €3,000 a year for a professional liability policy including general liability, with common limits of €1 to 8 million per insurance year; a SaaS vendor or IT services firm whose contracts carry high liability caps easily goes beyond that, between €3,000 and €10,000, because the professional liability limit has to match the size of client contracts.

What mistakes do we see most often in audits?

The first is buying professional liability "by profession" without reading the list of declared activities: an IT services firm declared as "IT consulting" that actually hosts client data discovers the exclusion at the first claim. The second is general liability tucked inside a property policy for the premises: it covers visitors to your offices but not your employees travelling to clients, nor property entrusted to you. The third, specific to technology companies, is the boundary with cyber cover: professional liability compensates your client for the coding error, the cyber policy pays your own costs after an attack, and the two policies must define who pays what in a data breach (see our article on liability for software errors).

Frequently asked questions

Is general liability compulsory?

No, no general statute requires it. But the company's civil liability for damage caused to third parties always applies, under Articles 1240 and following of the Civil Code; landlords and principals also demand a certificate. It is unavoidable as soon as there are premises, employees or travel.

Can a single policy cover both?

Yes, and it is the most common set-up: an SME "professional liability" policy generally contains a general liability section and a professional section, with separate limits. Check that both sections exist, that each has its own limit, and that the declared activities match what you actually do.

Does professional liability cover injury to my own employees?

No. Workplace accidents are compensated by social security. General liability steps in on top, through the "employer's liability" section, when the employee obtains a finding of inexcusable fault against the employer and claims additional compensation.

What happens if I switch professional liability insurer?

On a claims-made basis, the old policy covers claims linked to events before its cancellation for at least five years, unless the new policy takes over that past. Explicitly ask the new insurer for "prior acts" cover to avoid a dispute between two carriers when a claim arrives.

At Lesto, we read your liability policies line by line, general and professional, to check that your actual activities, your limits and your client contract clauses are aligned, then consult nine insurers on average to rebuild the cover at the right price. Want to know which of the two you are missing? Discover our professional liability offer and request an analysis within 72 hours.