Insurance Agents’ E&O policies generally come in two forms: claims-made or claims-made-and-reported. This is an important aspect of coverage to keep in mind when purchasing E&O coverage for your agency.
Claims-Made provides coverage for claims made during the policy period. The reporting requirement for such policies is generally “as soon as practicable” and they typically allow reporting of the claim for a period of time past the expiration date of the policy.
Claims-Made-and-Reported provides coverage for claims made and reported during the policy period. They may require a specific timeframe – 30 days, for example – that claims must be reported in and do not allow reporting after the expiration of the policy period.
Example:
In this example, a claims-made policy would respond. A claims-made-and-reported policy would decline coverage due to the claim being reported after the policy period ended, even though the demand was made during the term.