Casualty Insurance Basics and Liability Concepts
Legal foundation
Liability insurance responds to the insured's legal liability for damages due to bodily injury, property damage, or personal and advertising injury. Negligence requires four elements: a duty owed, breach, proximate cause, and damages. Defenses include contributory negligence (bars recovery in a few jurisdictions), comparative negligence (reduces recovery proportionally), assumption of risk, and statutes of limitation.
Related doctrines show up as question stems: res ipsa loquitur (the thing speaks for itself - inference of negligence from the nature of the accident), attractive nuisance (child trespassers), strict/absolute liability (ultrahazardous activity, defective products), vicarious liability (employer for employee acts within scope), and governmental or charitable immunity.
Damages and coverage mechanics
Compensatory damages are special (medical bills, lost wages - documentable) or general (pain and suffering); punitive damages punish and are often excluded or restricted. Liability policies define injury broadly, trigger on an occurrence or on a claims-made basis (watch the retroactive date and extended reporting period), and may pay defense costs inside or outside limits - supplementary payments, such as defense expense and bail bonds, are usually outside the limit.
Limits can be split (per person / per occurrence) or a single combined single limit. Additional insured status is granted by endorsement; a certificate of insurance is evidence of coverage and confers no rights.
Rule of thumb
Duty → breach → proximate cause → damages. If any element is missing in the fact pattern, there is no negligence and no liability recovery.