Directors & Officers (D&O)
Personal liability of leadership, and the company's duty to indemnify.
Guides
- Professional Services Insurance: The 2026 Playbook
Professional services businesses should start with the liability created by their advice, designs, recommendations, or deliverables—not with a package label. This playbook maps the professional-liability, general- liability, cyber, and management-liability decisions to the work you do, the contracts you sign, and the continuity terms that can decide whether a later claim reaches a policy at all.
- Technology Company Insurance: The 2026 Liability Playbook
A technology company's insurance is rarely a risk decision. It is a condition of the deals you need to close — the enterprise customer's contract, the office lease, the data you hold, and the products you ship. Those requirements decide most of what you carry. This playbook maps the five exposures that generate technology claims to the liability line each one belongs to, who can assert it, and what the other party will demand before they sign.
- Venture-Backed Startup Insurance: The 2026 Liability Playbook
Insurance at a venture-backed startup is rarely a risk decision. It is a condition of the deals you need to close — the term sheet, the enterprise customer's contract, the office lease — and those requirements decide most of what you carry. This playbook maps the five exposures that actually generate startup claims to the liability line each one belongs to, who can assert it, and what the other party will demand before they sign.
Questions
- My investment fund does not take board seats. Do I need D&O insurance? I would not start by asking whether you need Directors and Officers liability insurance, but what liabilities the fund, GP, management company, investment committee and individual investment professionals can incur.
- We have D&O coverage as an asset manager, but our portfolio companies also have D&O coverage. Are they redundant? No. They are generally complementary rather than redundant—but the payout can get complicated. Think of the insurance architecture as separate towers protecting different organizations and different capacities.
- What does D&O insurance cover? D&O insurance pays defense costs, settlements, and judgments when directors and officers are sued personally over decisions made running the organization — and through its three insuring agreements it also protects the company. Side A covers individuals the company can't indemnify, Side B reimburses the company's indemnification, and Side C covers the entity itself.
- What insurance do investors require for startups? D&O first — often as a condition of the round or the board seat — typically alongside general liability and cyber, with crime and key person coverage appearing when the risk profile calls for them. None of this is law: it's a closing requirement enforced by the deal and the investor's counsel, which makes it non-optional in practice.
- What is D&O insurance for nonprofits? The same product as corporate D&O — coverage that defends board members and officers sued over how they govern the organization, with the standard Side A/B/C structure — bought because volunteer directors pledge their personal assets to serve. The federal Volunteer Protection Act limits some volunteer liability but not the nonprofit's, and stops no lawsuit from being filed.
- What is the difference between D&O and EPLI? It depends — D&O and EPLI may protect some of the same people, but they answer different allegations. D&O addresses management and governance decisions; EPLI addresses wrongful employment acts such as discrimination, harassment, retaliation, and termination. A claim naming an officer is not automatically D&O; the claimant’s theory and the policy’s wording decide the lane.
- When should a startup consider Directors and Officers liability coverage? At the first priced round or the first outside board seat — whichever comes first. The consistent trigger across the startup insurance market is outside money: brokers advise binding D&O by or shortly after a priced round, and founders report investors requiring it before taking a board seat. Before that point, it's judgment rather than obligation.
- Why do insurance companies need so much information before quoting D&O? Because we are not underwriting your office building. We are underwriting the probability that somebody will accuse management of making a bad decision—and how expensive that allegation could become.