CISR Commercial Casualty I common mistakes
CISR Commercial Casualty I · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering a Commercial General Liability coverage question as if the policy were claims-made - asking whether the claim was reported during the policy period instead of whether the bodily injury or property damage occurred during the policy period.
Candidates carry over habits from professional liability and other claims-made lines, and both the occurrence trigger and the 'occurrence' definition are tested indirectly through scenario questions rather than quoted outright.
What to do instead
Before answering any CGL trigger question, write three words on scratch paper - injury date, policy period, report date. Confirm the injury/damage date falls inside the period, then confirm the injury qualifies as an 'occurrence' (an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions).
Applying the 'your work' exclusion to bar coverage for property damage caused by a subcontractor's defective work, without checking the subcontractor exception.
The exclusion is long and the exception sits at the end of the paragraph; candidates memorise 'damage to your work is excluded' as a slogan and stop reading.
What to do instead
Recite the exclusion as a chain: damage to 'your work' included in the 'products-completed operations hazard' is excluded - unless the damaged work or the work out of which the damage arises was performed on your behalf by a subcontractor. Then check whether the loss is in the products-completed operations hazard at all.
Treating the general aggregate as the cap on everything, or using the each-occurrence limit as the ceiling for a products-completed operations claim.
The two aggregates look interchangeable on a declarations page, and candidates do not link the products-completed operations aggregate to the specific hazard definition.
What to do instead
Build a small limit map before answering: each occurrence limit; general aggregate (applies to all coverage except products-completed operations); products-completed operations aggregate (applies only to that hazard); damage-to-premises and fire-legal sublimits; medical expense per person. State which limit applies and why before selecting an answer.
Assuming an intentional act can never be covered under a CGL policy, or conversely assuming 'personal and advertising injury' covers bodily injury and emotional distress.
The word 'accident' in the occurrence definition seems to rule out intent, and the personal and advertising injury coverage part lists offences that candidates half-remember and over-apply.
What to do instead
Separate the two ideas: the 'expected or intended' exclusion bars injury the insured expected or intended, not every deliberate act - an intentional act with unexpected resulting injury can still be an occurrence. Separately memorise that personal and advertising injury covers enumerated offences (false arrest, malicious prosecution, wrongful eviction, libel/slander, invasion of privacy, use of another's advertising idea, infringement of copyright/trade dress/slogan) and excludes bodily injury by definition.
Jumping straight to breach and damages in a liability question and never establishing duty, or treating a strict liability claim as if negligence had to be proved.
Exam vignettes are written to feel like a story about who caused harm, so candidates reason about fault in general rather than walking the elements of the specific theory of liability the question turns on.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed four-step scaffold for every Essentials question: duty (was the plaintiff a foreseeable person in the zone of danger?), breach (standard of care: reasonable person, professional, statutory), causation (actual and proximate), damages. Then ask whether the theory is negligence, strict liability (abnormally dangerous activity, defective product), or intentional tort, because each has different elements.
Equating proximate cause with 'but for' cause and stopping there, so an intervening act or an unforeseeable plaintiff is ignored.
Actual cause and proximate cause are taught together and candidates collapse them into one test; exam answers are frequently built around an intervening cause or an unforeseeable class of plaintiff.
What to do instead
Answer causation in two sentences: (1) actual cause - would the harm have occurred without the act? (2) proximate cause - was the harm a foreseeable consequence, or did an independent intervening act break the chain? If the wrongdoer's conduct created a foreseeable risk of harm to a foreseeable class of persons, proximate cause survives the intervening act.
Treating a certificate of insurance as if it grants coverage, or treating a contract clause requiring 'additional insured status' as automatically creating that status.
Certificates are the documents that actually change hands in practice, so candidates conflate the evidence of coverage with the coverage grant; they also forget that the policy can only be amended by endorsement.
What to do instead
Repeat the rule until automatic: a certificate is evidence of insurance only, confers no rights, and does not amend, extend, or alter coverage. Additional insured status exists only if a policy endorsement grants it - scheduled, blanket, or manuscript. When a question asks whether the additional insured is covered, identify the endorsement form first, then answer.
Assuming an additional insured endorsement covers the additional insured's completed work, or covering the additional insured for liability unrelated to the named insured's operations.
The most common endorsement wording grants status only with respect to liability arising out of 'your ongoing operations' performed for the additional insured, and candidates skim past the 'ongoing operations' qualifier and the 'arising out of' nexus.
What to do instead
For every additional insured question, write down the scope wording verbatim in substance: 'arising out of' whose operations, and 'ongoing operations' or completed operations? If the loss arises after the named insured's work is complete and the endorsement says ongoing operations, the additional insured has no grant. Coverage also does not extend to the additional insured's own independent negligence unconnected to the named insured's operations.
Assuming an additional insured endorsement is primary and non-contributory when the form actually makes it excess, or ignoring the other insurance condition entirely.
Owners and general contractors routinely demand primary and non-contributory wording in contracts, so candidates assume the endorsement supplies it; primary/non-contributory is a separate grant that must appear in the endorsement.
What to do instead
Check three things in order: does the endorsement itself state that coverage is primary and non-contributory (or that it applies on a primary basis)? If not, the policy's other insurance condition governs and the coverage is excess. If primary wording is absent but a contract requires it, flag that as a coverage gap, not as coverage.
Confusing the 'insured contract' exception with the assumption-of-liability exclusion, or assuming every contract the insured signs is an insured contract that restores coverage.
Both live inside the contractual liability exclusion and the definition of 'insured contract', and candidates memorise the phrase without the narrow categories it covers.
What to do instead
Learn the exclusion as a rule with specific doors back in: the contractual liability exclusion bars liability assumed under contract, and the 'insured contract' exception restores coverage only for the enumerated categories - leases of premises, sidetrack agreements, easement or licence agreements, and business contracts where the insured assumes the tort liability of another to pay for bodily injury or property damage. Note that the exception does not restore coverage taken away by the professional liability exclusion.