What “Indemnify and Hold Harmless” Actually Means

Indemnification clauses can make you pay the other side's legal bills. Plain-English explanation before your next contract.

To indemnify someone is to agree to pay their losses. In practice that can mean funding their legal defense, their settlement, and their judgment, even when a third party started the fight.

Three questions decide how bad the clause is. What triggers the duty? Does it run both ways? Is it capped by the liability clause, or written to survive it?

The version worth pushing back on is broad, one-way, and excluded from the cap. That combination puts no ceiling on what a single claim can cost you.