There is a special type of insurance for people and companies who hold themselves out as “professionals”. To name a few: doctors, attorneys, cpa’s. When they make an error in their professional practice, the type of insurance that responds is called Professional Liability, or Malpractice, or Errors and Omissions (E&O).
When an E&O claim is activated it means someone and/or something has been damaged. It could be physically damaged or financial damaged, but damaged because the claimant followed the advice, or the treatment, of the professional.
We have heard the horror stories of when can happen when a medical doctor has a bad day.
A large tax preparation firm issued software that, in one part of the program (it was fine everywhere else), the decimal was off by one tenth a point. That’s all it took. Thousands bought the software with the programming error that cost millions. Oops.
I’ve seen claims for realtors and attorneys that came about because a filing deadline was missed. For the realtor, it cost the client a house. The attorney cost their client his freedom. Oops.
All of these are examples of errors and omission claims. The trusted professionals slipped and cost the clients something: their money, their health, their trust.