An occurrence-based insurance policy is generally triggered by an insured event that occurs during the period of insurance.

A claim may be made or reported later, but the relevant event must usually have occurred while the policy was in force.

Example #

Suppose a business held Public Liability Insurance in 2025.

A customer was injured as a result of an incident during that policy period but did not make a claim until 2026.

If the Public Liability section is occurrence-based, the 2025 policy may be the relevant policy because that is when the incident occurred.

Whether the claim is covered will still depend on the policy wording and circumstances.

Public and Products Liability can be more complicated #

A policy described as Public and Products Liability Insurance can contain different triggers for different sections of cover.

Public Liability is commonly written on an occurrence basis.

Depending on the insurer and policy wording, Products Liability may also be occurrence-based, or it may operate on a claims-made basis.

This distinction is important.

If the Products Liability section is claims-made, the policy in force when the claim is made and notified can be relevant, rather than simply the policy that was in force when the product was originally supplied.

You should therefore not assume that the Public Liability and Products Liability sections operate in exactly the same way simply because they appear under the same policy.

Always check the particular Policy Wording.

You can read more about claims-made insurance policies.

If you are unsure which basis applies to your policy, contact our team.