Guides
Management liability packages: D&O, EPLI, fiduciary and crime
A management liability package bundles D&O, EPLI, fiduciary and crime coverage. How shared limits, retentions and a single application work, and what to check.
A management liability package sells directors and officers (D&O), employment practices (EPLI), fiduciary liability and commercial crime coverage together, on one application and often one policy. The convenience is real, but the structure behind it is where packages differ: whether the parts share a single limit, how many retentions apply, and how one application is applied to all of them.
What goes into a package
Chubb describes management liability as a suite of products that may include D&O, employment practices liability, fiduciary liability and commercial crime. Chubb's ForeFront Portfolio is aimed at private companies, not-for-profit organizations and healthcare organizations. CNA's management liability page lists crime, D&O, EPL, fiduciary and kidnap, ransom and extortion coverage in a modular program, and says it serves private or public companies and not-for-profits. Other carriers add cyber, miscellaneous professional liability or workplace violence. Which parts are included, and which are optional, is carrier-specific. See Chubb and CNA for the companies' profiles, and ask your broker which other carriers write a package for your size and industry.
| Part | Protects against | Trigger | Detail guide |
|---|---|---|---|
| D&O | Claims against directors, officers and the entity over management decisions | Claims-made | Directors and officers (D&O) insurance explained |
| EPLI | Employee claims of discrimination, harassment, retaliation, wrongful termination | Claims-made | Employment practices liability insurance (EPLI): what it covers |
| Fiduciary | Breach-of-duty claims about retirement and benefit plans | Claims-made | fiduciary liability insurance for employee benefit plans |
| Crime | Your own losses from employee theft, forgery, funds transfer fraud and similar | Loss-sustained or discovery, depending on the form | commercial crime insurance: what it covers and what it excludes |
The first three are liability coverages that respond to third-party claims. Crime is first-party: it pays you for money and property you lose. That difference matters when limits are shared, as discussed below.
Who buys packages, and why
A package fits organizations that need all four coverages but are too small to justify four separate policies and four applications: a privately held company, a nonprofit, a homeowners' association, a professional practice or a school. Owners often discover they need more than one part at the same time. A lender asks for D&O, an employee files an EEOC charge, a benefits advisor points out the 401(k) has no fiduciary coverage, and the landlord's auditor asks about employee theft. See D&O insurance for private companies and startups, D&O insurance for nonprofit boards, nonprofits and condo and HOA associations for the entity-specific issues.
Packages usually save money in two ways: one application and one underwriting file, and a shared limit that is cheaper than four separate limits of the same size. Do not buy one only for the price, because the shared limit is also the main trap.
How limits work
There are three common structures:
- One shared aggregate. One dollar amount applies to all liability parts for the policy year. Say that's $2 million. A $1.2 million EPLI claim leaves $800,000 for every other claim that year, including a D&O suit.
- Separate limits for each part. D&O has its own $1 million, EPLI its own $1 million, and so on. A bad year on one part doesn't touch the others, but the premium is higher.
- Shared limit with per-part sublimits. A $2 million aggregate with caps, for instance, a lower limit on fiduciary or EPLI claims.
Most forms put defense costs inside the limit. Check each part, because a package can mix treatments. See defense costs inside vs outside policy limits: why it matters. Crime coverage is normally a separate, smaller limit, since it protects your balance sheet, not defendants.
A hypothetical year
Say a 60-employee private manufacturer buys a package with a $2 million shared aggregate across D&O, EPLI and fiduciary, plus a separate $250,000 crime limit. In the same policy year:
- A former manager's wrongful termination case settles after defense costs, and the insurer pays $900,000 in total.
- A minority investor sues the board over a related-party sale. Defense costs through summary judgment reach $600,000.
- A 401(k) fee suit is filed and defense costs begin.
After the first two, $500,000 of the shared limit remains for the fiduciary claim and anything else. Separate $1 million limits would have left D&O and fiduciary untouched by the EPLI claim. The numbers are invented, but the arithmetic is why shared limits need to be sized to the worst plausible year, not the average one.
What to read in a package
- Retention. Is there one retention for the whole policy or a different amount for each part? EPLI often has a higher retention than D&O Side A, which is commonly zero.
- One application, many applicants. The application for the package is usually signed once, by one officer. Ask whether the form has a severability clause so that one person's knowledge or misstatement is not imputed to everyone else, and whether knowledge is tested part by part. See insurance applications: why accuracy matters and what misrepresentation costs.
- Retroactive and continuity dates. Each part can have its own date. Moving to a package from separate policies should carry over every prior date. See prior acts and retroactive dates.
- Insured versus insured. The exclusion can interact with an employment claim brought by an executive or a derivative suit; read the carve-backs. See The insured vs insured exclusion in D&O policies.
- Wage-and-hour and third-party coverage. Packages often follow the same defaults as standalone EPLI. See Wage-and-hour exclusions and third-party EPLI.
- Side A and entity coverage. Ask whether personal asset protection is separate from the entity limit, or whether a bankruptcy or merger can strip it. See D&O Sides A, B and C explained.
- Crime wording. Check the employee definition, the funds-transfer and social engineering sublimits, and that ERISA plans are insured if you rely on the crime part to satisfy your bonding duty. See ERISA fidelity bonds vs fiduciary liability insurance.
- Change in control. A sale or merger usually ends coverage for later wrongful acts, so negotiate the run-off. See tail coverage and extended reporting periods.
Package or standalone?
| Situation | Package tends to fit | Standalone tends to fit |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer than a few hundred employees, private ownership | Yes | |
| Heavy employment exposure (high turnover, seasonal staff) | Needs a high EPLI limit | Separate EPLI limit |
| Venture-backed or acquisition targets | D&O with tower and Side A layers | |
| Large benefit plans or an ESOP | Separate fiduciary limit | |
| Public company | Public company D&O |
A broker can price both ways. Marsh's Global Insurance Market Index, released July 23, 2026, reported U.S. financial and professional lines rates up 1% in Q2 2026 after a 2% decrease in Q1. Index data is a background guide for large accounts, not a quote for yours, so use competing proposals to compare.
Key takeaways
- A package combines D&O, EPLI, fiduciary and often crime on one application; cyber and other coverages may be added.
- The key design question is the limit: shared aggregate, separate limits or shared with sublimits.
- A shared limit is cheaper, but one large EPLI or D&O claim can exhaust the protection for the other parts for the year.
- Read the retention, severability, retroactive date and defense cost wording for each part, not only the package summary.
- Packages fit most private companies and nonprofits; larger or more complex organizations often need standalone policies.