Insurance:
In law and economics, insurance is a form of risk management primarily used to hedge against the risk of a contingent. Insurance is defined as the equitable transfer of the risk of a loss, from one entity to another, in exchange for payment.
General terminology:
Insurer: An insurer is a company selling the insurance.
Policyholder: The person or entity buying the insurance policy.
Premium: Factor used to determine the amount to be charged for a certain amount of insurance coverage
General Insurance:
General insurance or non-life insurance policies, includes automobile and homeowners policies. General insurance typically comprises any insurance that is not determined to be life insurance. In simple other than Life Insurance comes under General Insurance.
In U.S. General Insurance is called property and casualty insurance and Non-Life Insurance in Continental Europe.
In the UK, General insurance is broadly divided into three areas: personal lines, commercial lines and London market.
London market insures: London market insures large commercial risks such as supermarkets, football players and other very specific risks.
Commercial lines: Commercial lines products are usually designed for relatively small legal entities. These would include workers’ comp (employer’s liability), public liability, product liability, commercial fleet and other general insurance products sold in a relatively standard fashion to many organizations
Personal lines: Personal lines products are designed to be sold in large quantities. This would include autos (private car), homeowners (household), pet insurance, creditor insurance and others.
Property insurance: Property insurance provides protection against most risks to property, such as fire, theft and some weather damage. This includes specialized forms of insurance such as fire insurance, flood insurance, earthquake insurance, home insurance or boiler insurance.
Property is insured in two main ways—opens perils and named perils.
Open perils: Open perils cover all the causes of loss not specifically excluded in the policy. Common exclusions on open peril policies include damage resulting from earthquakes, floods, nuclear incidents, acts of terrorism and war.
Named perils: It requires the actual cause of loss to be listed in the policy for insurance to be provided. The more common named perils include such damage-causing events as fire, lightning, explosion and theft.
Casualty insurance: One of the most common kinds of casualty insurance today is automobile insurance. In its most basic form, automobile insurance provides liability coverage in the event that a driver is found “at fault” in an accident. This can cover medical expenses of individuals involved in the accident as well as restitution or repair of damaged property, It may include marine insurance for shipwrecks or losses at sea or fidelity and surety insurance. It may also include earthquake, political risk insurance, terrorism insurance, fidelity and surety bonds.
Types of Insurance:
- Auto insurance
- Home insurance
- Health insurance
- Casualty insurance
- Life insurance
- Property insurance
- Liability insurance
- Burial insurance
- Pet insurance
Other Types of Insurance:
- Business interruption insurance
- Collateral protection insurance
- Defense Base Act (DBA) insurance
- Expatriate insurance
- Kidnap and ransom insurance
- Legal expenses insurance
- Locked funds insurance
- Livestock
- Title insurance
- Travel insurance
- Tuition insurance
- Interest rate insurance
- Credit insurance