Your Ideas Are Your Most Valuable Asset — and Your General Liability Policy Excludes Them.
Protecting the patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets a business is built on
Intellectual property insurance protects a business against the cost of defending and pursuing disputes over patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets, and trade dress — the exact exposures a standard commercial general liability policy carves out with a broad intellectual-property exclusion. It pays legal defense, settlements, and judgments when the business is accused of infringing someone else's rights, and, on the enforcement side, funds the cost of stopping a competitor who is copying the business's own protected work.
The critical point is that a general liability policy's "personal and advertising injury" grant is a narrow, closed list that responds only to the insured's own promotional advertising and expressly excludes intellectual-property infringement other than a sliver of advertising-idea and slogan claims. Patent litigation — the most expensive category of business litigation in the country, routinely running into the millions before trial — sits entirely outside that grant. Intellectual property coverage is the dedicated market built for that gap.
What Intellectual Property Insurance Covers
Coverage is written in two directions — defending claims against you and enforcing your rights against others:
Infringement Defense — Pays to defend the business against claims that its products, services, branding, or content infringe another party's patent, trademark, copyright, or trade dress.
Damages & Settlements — Covers the settlements and judgments a business must pay when an infringement claim succeeds, not just the cost of the defense.
IP Enforcement / Pursuit Cover — Funds the legal cost of pursuing infringers who copy the business's own patented invention, brand, or copyrighted work — protecting the value the business has built.
Contractual Indemnity to Customers — Responds to the IP infringement indemnities a business signs into customer, licensing, and reseller contracts, which most other policies exclude.
Loss of Net Income — Covers lost profit when an infringement injunction or dispute forces the business to stop selling a product or using a brand.
Legal Defense Costs — Pays the defense costs that, in patent and trademark disputes, are frequently the largest single exposure — often exceeding any eventual damages.
What It Does Not Cover
Intellectual property coverage is dedicated content-and-rights protection, so it excludes adjacent risks that belong on other policies:
Bodily injury and property damage, which belong to general liability
Data breach, ransomware, and network-security losses, which belong to cyber
Errors in professional services delivered to a client, which belong to professional liability or technology E&O
Deliberate, willful, or knowing infringement, and claims known before the policy's retroactive date
Media content offenses like defamation and invasion of privacy, which belong to media and advertising liability
Who Needs Intellectual Property Insurance
Any business whose value lives in what it creates, brands, or licenses is exposed, especially:
Technology and software companies shipping products that could read on someone's patent
Manufacturers and consumer-product companies with distinctive designs and trade dress
Life sciences, medical device, and hardware startups built around a patent portfolio
Media, publishing, gaming, and creative studios that license and reuse content
Businesses that sign IP indemnity clauses into enterprise, reseller, or licensing contracts
Companies raising capital, where investors and acquirers increasingly expect IP coverage in diligence
Brand owners who need the means to enforce their trademarks and patents against copycats
How Coverage Is Structured
Intellectual property insurance is a specialty, claims-made line placed largely through surplus and specialist markets. A defensive policy responds to infringement claims made against the insured; an enforcement or pursuit policy advances the cost of the insured going after an infringer, usually with a co-payment and a recovery-sharing feature. Policies carry a retroactive date, so prior known disputes are excluded, and coverage territory must be set to match where the business sells and where its rights are registered. Limits, defense-inside-or-outside-the-limit terms, and consent-to-settle provisions vary widely between carriers, and patent coverage in particular is underwritten around the specific products and claims at issue.
Real-World Claim Examples
A non-practicing entity ("patent troll") asserts a broad software patent against a growing SaaS company
A competitor alleges that a new consumer product's design infringes its trade dress and seeks an injunction
An enterprise customer tenders an IP indemnity demand after being sued over technology the business supplied
A startup discovers a competitor selling a near-identical copy of its patented device and must enforce its rights
A publisher is sued for copyright infringement over licensed material reused beyond the license terms
Any one of these can run well into six or seven figures in defense costs alone, which is why defense funding is the heart of the coverage.
Regulatory & Contract Context
Intellectual property risk is increasingly driven by contract, not just litigation. Enterprise software, manufacturing, licensing, and reseller agreements now routinely require the supplier to indemnify the customer against IP infringement claims and, more and more, to carry intellectual property insurance as a condition of doing business. Patent assertion by non-practicing entities remains a large and persistent source of demand letters against operating companies of every size, and investors and acquirers treat a clean, insured IP position as part of diligence. Coverage is not a substitute for good IP hygiene — clearance searches, registration, freedom-to-operate opinions, and disciplined contracting — but it is the financial backstop when a dispute lands anyway.
Why Proper Placement Matters
Underwriters weigh the business's products and how close they run to crowded patent fields, its trademark and copyright portfolio, revenue and territory, the IP indemnities it has signed, any prior demand letters or disputes, and the strength of its clearance and registration practices. Because capacity is specialized and terms differ sharply on defense treatment, consent-to-settle, enforcement co-payments, and retroactive dates, the placement details matter as much as the limit. Matching the policy to the real exposure — defensive, enforcement, or both — and aligning it with the indemnities in the business's contracts are the essential steps.
Our Approach
At Cory Washington & Co., we treat intellectual property as the asset it is. We place coverage that defends the infringement claims your general liability policy excludes, funds enforcement when someone copies your work, and backs the IP indemnities you've signed into customer contracts — set to a limit and territory that fit how and where you actually do business. We read your contracts for the indemnity obligations that drive the exposure and coordinate the placement with your other lines. We also insure closely related risks, including media and advertising liability, cyber, professional liability, and technology companies.
Your ideas are your most valuable asset and the one your general liability policy leaves out — we build the coverage to defend them and to enforce them, defense costs and customer indemnities included.
All insurance descriptions on this website are provided by Cory Washington & Co. LLC strictly for general informational purposes. They are not intended to be, and should not be relied upon as, legal, financial, or insurance advice. The information presented is general in nature and does not guarantee the availability, terms, conditions, or scope of any insurance coverage. Actual coverage is determined solely by the specific policy language issued by the insurer and remains subject to underwriting approval. Nothing on this website creates or implies an agent-client relationship, binds coverage, or alters any existing policy. Cory Washington & Co. LLC expressly disclaims any liability for actions taken, or not taken, based on the content provided here. For advice regarding your particular situation, please consult directly with a licensed insurance professional at Cory Washington & Co. LLC or another qualified insurance professional, and always review your policy documents in full.
See what to confirm in a intellectual property policy — what's standard, what's often limited, and what to add if needed — plus the gap most often missed, in the Intellectual Property Policy Feature Checklist.
Download the fillable Intellectual Property Supplemental to start your submission, or browse all applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I get intellectual property insurance through Cory Washington & Co.?
Request a quote or contact our team. We start with a short conversation about your operations, analyze your exposures, then negotiate intellectual property insurance across multiple carriers that compete for your account and present options with the trade-offs explained. Cory Washington & Co. LLC is licensed in all 50 states.
How much does intellectual property insurance cost?
There is no flat rate. The cost of intellectual property insurance reflects your industry, your size (payroll and revenue), your claims history, and the limits and deductibles you choose. We market your account to multiple carriers, compare the real quotes side by side, and explain what is driving each number so you can weigh coverage against price with confidence.
Who needs intellectual property insurance?
Whether intellectual property insurance is strictly required depends on your state, your contracts, and your lenders or clients. Even where it is not mandatory, going without it can leave serious financial gaps. We assess your exposure and any contractual requirements, then structure coverage that meets both.
What if another agency has already declined or non-renewed my coverage?
Difficult, specialty, and previously-declined placements are a core part of our work. We access excess & surplus (E&S) and specialty markets that many generalist agencies cannot, and we explain the trade-offs clearly so you can decide with confidence.
Available in all 50 states. See how requirements differ in California, Texas, Florida, New York, or choose your state.