Incur / Occur
Different meaningsAn event occurs; a person or organisation incurs a cost, liability, loss or penalty. Occur does not take a direct object, while incur normally does.
Incur
Use when
A person or organisation becomes liable for, experiences or brings upon itself a cost, debt, loss, penalty or other consequence.
Example
“The agency incurred additional recovery costs after the outage.”
Occur
Use when
An event happens or takes place.
Example
“The service disruption occurred at 2 pm.”
Quick check
the disruption incurred at 2 pm, the agency occurred additional costs, costs occurred when incurred is meant
Usage note