Accidents and Continuing Occurrences

Defining Accidents and Occurrences

In casualty insurance, understanding the cause of a loss begins with distinguishing between an accident and an occurrence. An accident generally involves unexpected, unintended injury or damage; the act that led to it may have been deliberate. An accident may be sudden, such as a collision, or involve continuous or repeated exposure; it does not always have an identifiable moment of origin. For example, a delivery driver backing into a loading dock and breaking an overhead door is an accidental loss with a clear moment of impact. Similarly, a painter accidentally dropping a paint can onto a car is an unexpected event producing unintended property damage.

Under the standard ISO Commercial General Liability (CGL) definition, an occurrence means an accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general harmful conditions. This means that not every occurrence is classified as a sudden accident. Older liability policies often used the term accident rather than occurrence, but accident does not always mean sudden; policy wording and applicable law determine whether gradual damage is covered.

Under the ISO Business Auto Coverage Form, liability coverage generally applies to bodily injury or property damage caused by an accident resulting from the ownership, maintenance, or use of a covered auto. Commercial auto policies often define accident to include continuous or repeated exposure to the same conditions. While the occurrence definition can encompass both sudden accidents and continuous or repeated exposure, establishing that an event meets this definition does not guarantee coverage. The loss must satisfy all other policy provisions, conditions, and exclusions.