This Glossary is under construction....please accept our apologies for the sections that are still missing.
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M , N, O, P, Q, R, S (  T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z )

A

• Absolute Liability: Liability for damages even though fault or negligence cannot be proven.
• Accident: An event or occurrence which is unforeseen and unintended.
• Accident and Health Insurance: A type of coverage that pays benefits, sometimes including reimbursement for loss of income, in case of sickness, accidental injury, or accidental death.
• Accident Insurance: A form of health insurance against loss by accidental bodily injury.
• Accidental Bodily Injury: Injury to the body as the result of an accident.
• Accidental Death Benefit: A benefit in addition to the face amount of a life insurance policy, payable if the insured dies as the result of an accident. Sometimes referred to as "double indemnity."
• Acquisition Costs: The insurer's cost of putting new business in force, including the agent's commission, the cost of clerical work, fees for medical examinations and inspection reports, sales promotion expense, etc.
• Activities of Daily Living: A list of activities, normally including mobility, dressing, bathing, toileting, transferring, and eating which are used to assess degree of impairment and determine eligibility for some types of insurance benefits.
• Actual Cash Value (ACV): 1) The cost of replacing or restoring property at prices prevailing at the time and place of the loss, less depreciation, however caused; 2) replacement cost minus.
• Additional insured: an assured party specifically named under an insurance policy
• Adjuster: A person who investigates and settles losses for an insurance carrier.
• Adjusting: The process of investigating and settling losses with or by an insurance carrier.
• Adjustment Bureau: Organization for adjusting insurance claims that is supported by insurers using the bureau's services.
• Agent: An insurance company representative licensed by the state who solicits, negotiates or effects contracts of insurance, and provides service to the policyholder for the insurer.
• Aggregate Deductible: Deductible in some property and health insurance contracts in which all covered losses during a year are added together and the insurer pays only when the aggregate deductible amount is exceeded.
• Allied Lines: A term for forms of property insurance allied with fire insurance, covering such perils as windstorm, hail, explosion, and riot.
• Allocated Benefits: Benefits for which the maximum amount payable for specific services is itemized in the contract.
• All-risks Policy: Coverage by an insurance contract that promises to cover all losses except those losses specifically excluded in the policy. See also: Risks of direct loss to property.
• Amendment: A formal document changing the provisions of an insurance policy signed jointly by the insurance company officer and the policy holder or his authorized representative.
• Amortization: Paying an interest-bearing liability by gradual reduction through a series of installments, as opposed to one lump-sum payment.
• Arson: The willful and malicious burning of, or attempt to burn, any structure or other property, often with criminal or fraudulent intent.
• Assets: All funds, property, goods, securities, rights of action, or resources of any kind owned by an insurance company. Statutory accounting, however, excludes non-admitted assets, such as deferred or overdue premiums, that would be considered assets under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
• Assignment: The legal transfer of one person's interest in an insurance policy to another person.
• Assurance Insurance: These terms are today generally accepted as synonymous, although not originally so. The term "assurance" is used more commonly in Canada and Great Britain than in the United States.
• Automobile Liability Insurance: Protection for the insured against financial loss because of legal liability for car-related injuries to others or damage to their property.
• Automobile Physical Damage Insurance: Coverage to pay for damage to or loss of an insured automobile resulting from collision, fire, theft, or other perils.
• Automobile Reinsurance Facility: One of several types of "shared market" mechanisms used to make automobile insurance available to persons who are unable to obtain such insurance in the regular market.
• Aviation Insurance: Aircraft insurance including coverage of aircraft or their contents, the owner's liability, and accident insurance on the passengers.Beneficiary: The person designated or provided for by the policy terms to receive any benefits provided by the policy or plan upon the death of the insured.
• Avoidance: see Loss Avoidance.

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B

• Basic Form: see Dwelling Property 1.
• Benefits: The amount payable by the insurance company to a claimant, assignee or beneficiary under each coverage.
• Binder: A written or oral contract issued temporarily to place insurance in force when it is not possible to issue a new policy or endorse the existing policy immediately. A binder is subject to the premium and all the terms of the policy to be issued.
• Blanket Medical Expense: A provision which entitles the insured person to collect up to a maximum established in the policy for all hospital and medical expenses incurred, without any limitations on individual types of medical expenses.
• Blue Cross: An independent, nonprofit membership corporation providing protection on a service basis against the cost of hospital care in a limited geographical area.
• Boat Owners Package Policy: A special package policy for boat owners that combines physical damage insurance, medical expense insurance, liability insurance, and other coverages in one contract.
• Boiler and Machinery Insurance: Coverage for loss arising out of the operation of pressure, mechanical, and electrical equipment. It covers loss of the boiler and machinery itself, damage to other property, and business interruption losses.
• Book of Business: the number, size and type of accounts (policyholders) that an agent "owns."
• Broad Form: see Dwelling Property 2; Homeowners 2 Policy.
• Broker: A marketing specialist who represents buyers of property and liability insurance and who deals with either agents or companies in arranging for the coverage required by the customer.
• Burglary: Breaking and entering into another person's property with felonious intent.
• Burglary and Theft Insurance: Coverage against property losses due to burglary, robbery, or larceny.
• Business Insurance: A policy which primarily provides coverage of benefits to a business as contrasted to an individual. It is issued to indemnify a business for the loss of services of a key employee or a partner who becomes disabled.
• Business Interruption Insurance: Protection for a business owner against losses resulting from a temporary shutdown because of fire or other insured peril. The insurance provides reimbursement for lost net profits and necessary continuing expenses.

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C

• Cancellation: The discontinuance of an insurance policy before its normal expiration date, either by the insured or the company.
• Capacity: The amount of capital available to an insurance company or to the industry as a whole for underwriting general insurance coverage or coverage for specific perils.
• Cargo Insurance: Type of ocean marine insurance that protects the shipper of the goods against financial loss if the goods are damaged or lost.
• Catastrophe: Event which causes a loss of extraordinary magnitude, such as a hurricane or tornado.
• Causes-of-loss Form: Form added to commercial property insurance policy that indicates the causes of loss that are covered. There are four causes-of-loss forms: basic, broad, special, and earthquake.
• Claim: A request for payment of a loss which may come under the terms of an insurance contract.
• Claims Adjustor: Person who settles claims: an agent, company adjustor, independent adjustor, adjustment bureau, or public adjustor.
• Coinsurance: 1) A provision under which an insured who carries less than the stipulated percentage of insurance to value, will receive a loss payment that is limited to the same ratio which the amount of insurance bears to the amount required; 2) a policy provision frequently found in medical insurance, by which the insured person and the insurer share the covered losses under a policy in a specified ratio, i.e., 80 percent by the insurer and 20 percent by the insured.
• Collision Insurance: Protection against loss resulting from any damage to the policyholder's car caused by collision with another vehicle or object, or by upset of the insured car, whether it was the insured's fault or not.
• Commercial Lines: Insurance for businesses, organizations, institutions, governmental agencies, and other commercial establishments.
• Commercial Multiple Peril Policy: A package of insurance that includes a wide range of essential coverages for the commercial establishment.
• Commercial Package Policy (CPP): A commercial policy that can be designed to meet the specific insurance needs of business firms. Property and liability coverage forms are combined to form a single policy.
• Company Adjustor: Claims adjustor who is a salaried employee representing only one company.
• Completed Operations: Liability arising out of faulty work performed away from the premises after the work or operations are completed. Applicable to contractors, plumbers, electricians, repair shops, and similar firms.
• Comprehensive Automobile Insurance: Protection against loss resulting from damage to the insured auto, other than loss by collision or upset.
• Comprehensive Personal Liability Insurance: Protection against loss arising out of legal liability to pay money for damage or injury to others for which the insured is responsible. It does not include automobile or business operation liabilities.
• Compulsory Auto Liability Insurance: Insurance laws in some states required motorists to carry at least certain minimum auto coverages. This is called "compulsory" insurance.
• Compulsory Insurance: Any form of insurance which is required by law.
• Compulsory Insurance Law: Law protecting accident victims against irresponsible motorists by requiring owners and operators of automobiles to carry certain amounts of liability insurance in order to license the vehicle and drive legally within the state.
• Concealment: Deliberate failure of an applicant for insurance to reveal a material fact to the insurer.
• Concurrent Causation: Legal doctrine that states when a property loss is due to two causes, one that is excluded and one that is covered, the policy provides coverage.
• Conditional Receipt: A receipt given for premium payments accompanying an application for insurance. If the application is approved as applied for, the coverage is effective as of the date of the prepayment or the date on which the last of the underwriting requirements, such as a medical examination, has been fulfilled.
• Conditions: Provisions inserted in an insurance contract that qualify or place limitations on the insurer's promise to perform.
• Conservation: The attempt by the insurer to prevent the lapse of a policy.
• Consequential Loss: Financial loss occurring as the consequence of some other loss. Often called an indirect loss.
• Contents Broad Form: See Homeowners 4 policy.
• Contingent Liability: Liability arising out of work done by independent contractors for a firm. A firm may be liable for the work done by an independent contractor if the activity is illegal, the situation does not permit delegation of authority, or the work is inherently dangerous.
• Contract: A binding agreement between two or more parties for the doing or not doing of certain things. A contract of insurance is embodied in a written document called the policy.
• Contract Holder: The group, entity or person to whom a group annuity contract is issued.
• Contractual Liability: Legal liability of another party that the business firm agrees to assume by a written or oral contract.
• Contributory: A group insurance plan issued to an employer under which both the employer and employee contribute to the cost of the plan. Seventy-five percent of the eligible employees must be insured. (See Noncontributory.)
• Conversion Privilege: A privilege granted in an insurance policy to convert to a different plan of insurance without providing evidence of insurability. The privilege granted by a group policy is to convert to an individual policy upon termination of group coverage.
• Coverage: The scope of protection provided under a contract of insurance; any of several risks covered by a policy.
• Coverage for Damage to Your Auto: That part of the personal auto policy insuring payment for damage or theft of the insured automobile. This optional coverage can be used to insure both collision and other-than-collision losses.
• Covered: A person covered by a pension plan is one who has fulfilled the eligibility requirements in the plan, for whom benefits have accrued, or are accruing, or who is receiving benefits under the plan.
• Crop-hail Insurance: Protection against damage to growing crops as a result of hail or certain other named perils.
• CSR: Customer service representatives support the work of insurance agents with a variety of tasks that must be done within a company or agency to deliver services to and handle requests from clients.

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D

• Damage to Property of Others: Damage covered up to $500 per occurrence for an insured who damages another's property. Payment is made despite the lack of legal liability. Coverage is included in Section II of the homeowners policy.
• Declarations: Statements in an insurance contract that provide information about the property or life to be insured and used for underwriting and rating purposes and identification of the property or life to be insured.
• Declination: The insurer's refusal to insure an individual after careful evaluation of the application for insurance and any other pertinent factors.
• Deductible: An amount which a policyholder agrees to pay, per claim or per accident, toward the total amount of an insured loss.
• Deposit Premium: The premium deposit paid by a prospective policy holder when an application is made for an insurance policy. It is usually equal, at least, to the first month's estimate premium and is applied toward the actual premium when billed.
• Depreciation: A decrease in the value of property over a period of time due to wear and tear or obsolescence. Depreciation is used to determine the actual cash value of property at time of loss. (See Actual Cash Value)
• Difference in Conditions Insurance (DIC): "All-risks" policy that covers other perils not insured by basic property insurance contracts, supplemental to and excluding the coverage provided by underlying contracts.
• Direct Loss: Financial loss that results directly from an insured peril.
• Direct Response System: A marketing method where insurance is sold without the services of an agent. Potential customers are solicited by advertising in the mail, newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and other media.
• Direct Writer: The industry term for a company which uses its own sales employees to write its policies. Sometimes refers to companies which contract with exclusive agents.
• Directors' and Officers' Liability: the exposure of corporate managers to claims from shareholders, government agencies, and employees, and others alleging mismanagement.
• Disappearing Deductible: Deductible in an insurance contract that provides for a decreasing deductible amount as the size of the loss increases, so that small claims are not paid but large losses are paid in full.
• Dismemberment: Loss of body members (limbs), or use thereof, or loss of sight due to injury.
• Dollar Threshold: In no-fault auto insurance states with the dollar threshold, it prevents individuals from suing in tort to recover for pain and suffering unless their medical expenses exceed a certain dollar amount. .
• Double Indemnity: Payment of twice the policy's normal benefit in case of loss resulting from specified causes or under specified circumstances.
• Driver Education Credit: Student discount or reduction in premium amount for which young drivers become eligible on completion of a driver education course.
• Dwelling Property 1: Property insurance policy that insures the dwelling at actual cash value, other structures, personal property, fair rental value, and certain other coverages. Covers a limited number of perils.
• Dwelling Property 2: Property insurance policy that insures the dwelling and other structures at replacement cost. It adds additional coverages and has a greater list of covered perils than the Dwelling Property 1 policy.
• Dwelling Property 3: Property insurance policy that covers the dwelling and other structures against direct physical loss from any peril except for those perils otherwise excluded. However, personal property is covered on a named-perils basis.

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E

• Earned Income: Employment income derived from salary, wages, commissions, or fees.
• Economic Loss: The estimated total cost, both insured and uninsured, of mishaps (such as motor vehicle accidents, work accidents, and fires); includes such factors as property damage, funeral expenses, wage loss, insurance administration costs, and medical, hospital and legal costs.
• Effective Date: The date on which the insurance under a policy begins.
• Elements of a Negligent Act: Four elements an injured person must show to prove negligence: existence of a legal duty to use reasonable care, failure to perform that duty, damages or injury to the claimant, and proximate cause relationship between the negligent act and the infliction of damages.
• Employee Dishonesty Coverage Form: Commercial crime insurance form drafted by the Insurance Services Office that covers the loss of money, securities, and other covered property because of any dishonest act of a covered employee or employees.
• Endorsements: An additional piece of paper, not a part of the original contract, which cites certain terms and which, when attached to the original contract, becomes a legal part of that contract.
• Endorsement: An amendment of the policy usually by means of a rubber stamp or rider.
• Environmental Impairment Liability Insurance: A form of insurance designed to cover losses and liabilities arising from damage to property by pollution.
• Errors and Omissions Insurance: Liability insurance policy that provides protection against loss incurred by a client because of some negligent act, error, or omission by the insured.
• Estate: The assets and liabilities of a person left at death.
• Errors and Omissions Insurance: A form of insurance that indemnifies the insured for any loss sustained because of an error or oversight on his or her part.
• Excess and Surplus Insurance: (1) Insurance to cover losses above a certain amount, with losses below that amount usually covered by a regular policy. (2) Insurance to cover an unusual or one-time risk, e.g., damage to a musician's hands or the multiple perils of a convention, for which coverage is unavailable in the normal market. (See also "Umbrella liability" and "surplus lines.")
• Exclusions: Specific conditions or circumstances listed in the policy for which the policy will not provide benefit payments.
• Exclusion or Exception: Specified conditions or circumstances, listed in the policy, for which the policy will not provide benefits.
• Experience: A term used to describe the relationship, usually expressed as a percent or ratio, of premium to claims for a plan, coverage, or benefits for a stated time period.
• Exposure Unit: Unit of measurement used in insurance pricing.
• Extended Coverage Insurance: Protection for the insured against property damage caused by windstorm, hail, smoke, explosion, riot, riot attending a strike, civil commotion, vehicle and aircraft. This is provided in conjunction with the fire insurance policy and the various "package" policies.
• Extended Nonowned Coverage: Endorsement that can be added to an automobile liability insurance policy that covers the insured while driving any nonowned automobile on a regular basis.
• Extended Reporting Period: An additional period of time after policy expiration during which valid claims will be paid under a claims-made policy of liability insurance
• Extended Reporting Period Endorsement: Added to a claims-made policy of liability insurance to provide additional period of time during which valid claims will be paid
• Extended Term Insurance: A form of insurance available as a nonforfeiture option. It provides the original amount of insurance for a limited period of time.
• Extortion: Surrender of property away from the premises as a result of a threat to do bodily harm to the named insured, relative, or invitee who is being held captive.
• Extra Expense Insurance: Type of business income insurance that covers the extra expenses incurred to continue operations after a loss has occurred.

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F

• Facility: A pooling mechanism for insureds not able to obtain insurance in the voluntary market. Insurers write and issue policies but cede premium and losses on those policies to a central pool in which all insurers share.
• Facility of Payment: A contractual provision that allows the insurer, under stated conditions, to pay insurance benefits of up to $1,000 to a person or persons other than the insured, the designated beneficiary, or the insured's estate.
• Fair Rental Value: Amount payable to an insured homeowner for loss of rental income due to damage that makes the premises uninhabitable.
• Farmowners-Ranchowners Policy: A package policy for a farm or a ranch, providing property and liability coverages against personal and business losses.
• Federal Crime Insurance: Insurance against burglary, larceny, and robbery losses offered by the federal government where the Federal Insurance Administration has determined that an insurance availability problem exists.
• Federal Crop Insurance: Comprehensive coverage at rates subsidized by the federal government for unavoidable crop losses, including those that result from hail, wind, excessive rain, drought, freezes, plant disease, snow, floods, and earthquake.
• Federal Flood Insurance: Insurance sold by private insurers with rates subsidized by the federal government to persons who reside in flood zones and whose community joins the program and agrees to establish and enforce flood control and land-use measures.
• Federal Surety Bond: Type of surety bond required by federal agencies that regulates the actions of business firms. It guarantees that the bonded party will comply with federal standards, pay all taxes or duties accrued, or pay any penalty if the bondholder fails to pay.
• Fidelity Bond: A form of protection which reimburses an employer for losses caused by dishonest or fraudulent acts of employees.
• Fiduciary: A person who holds something in trust for another.
• Fire: A combustion accompanied by a flame or glow, which excapes its normal confines to cause damage.
• Fire Insurance: Coverage for losses caused by fire and lightning, plus resultant damage caused by smoke and water.
• Fire Legal Liability: Liability of a firm or person for fire damage caused by negligence of and damage to property of others.
• First party claim: a demand made by a policyholder reporting an insured event directly to his company.
• First Party Coverage: An insurance coverage under which the policyholder collects compensation for losses from the insured's own insurer rather than from the insurer of the person who caused the accident.
• Floaters: Insurance policies that cover property that can be moved from one location to another for both transportation perils and perils affecting property at a fixed location.
• Flood Insurance: Coverage against loss resulting from flood.
• Foreign Insurer: An insurer is a foreign company in any state other than the one in which it is incorporated.
• Forgery or Alteration Coverage Form: Commercial crime insurance form by the Insurance Services Office that covers loss resulting from the forgery or alteration of checks, drafts, bills of exchange, promissory notes, and similar instrments.
• Fortuitous Loss: Unforeseen and unexpected loss that occurs as a result of chance.
• Franchise Deductible: Deductible commonly found in marine insurance contracts in which the insurer has no liability if the loss is under a certain amount, but once this amount is exceeded, the entire loss is paid in full.
• Franchise Insurance: A form of insurance in which individual polices are issued to the employees of a common employer or the members of an association under an arrangement by which the employer or association agrees to collect the premiums and remit them to the insurer.
• Fraternal Insurance: A cooperative type of insurance provided by social organizations for their members.
• Fraternal Society: A social organization that provides insurance for its members.

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G

• General Liability Insurance: Coverage that pertains, for the most part, to claims arising out of the insured's liability for injuries or damage caused by ownership of property, manufacturing operations, contracting operations, sale or distribution of products, and the operation of machinery, as well as professional services.
• Glass Insurance: Protection for loss of or damage to glass and its appurtenances.
• Good Student Discount: Reduction of automobile premium for a young driver at least sixteen who ranks in the upper 20 percent of his or her class, has a B or 3.0 average, or is on the Dean's list or honor roll. It is based on the premise that good students are better drivers.
• Grace Period: A specified period after a premium payment is due, in which the policyholder may make such payment, and during which the protection of the policy continues.
• Gross estate: All of the assets and liabilities owned at death.
• Gross Negligence: the intentional failure to perform a manifest duty in reckless disregard of the consequences as affecting the life or property of another
• Gross Premium: The premium paid by the policyholder.
• Group Insurance: Insurance written on a number of people under a single master policy, issued to their employer or to an association with which they are affiliated.

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H

• Hard Market: That part of the insurance sales cycle in which competitive pricing is at a minimum as companies charge the premiums necessary to meet their underwriting losses in order to avoid insolvency and boost capacity; usually associated with a sharp decline in capacity (see "Soft market").
• Hazard: Condition that creates or increases the chance of loss.
• Health Insurance: Insurance against financial losses resulting from sickness or accidental bodily injury.
• Health Insurance: Protection which provide payment of benefits for covered sickness or injury. Included under this heading are various types of insurance such as accident insurance, disability income insurance, medical expense insurance, and accidental death and dismemberment insurance.
• Health Insurance: Insurance providing for the payment of benefits as a result of sickness or injury. Includes various types of insurance such as accident insurance, disability income insurance, medical expense insurance, accidental death insurance, and dismemberment insurance.
• Health Maintenance Organization (HMO): An organization that provides a wide range of comprehensive health care services for a specified group at a fixed periodic payment. The HMO can be sponsored by the government, medical schools, hospitals, employers, labor unions, consumer groups, insurance companies, and hospital-medical plans.
• Hedging: Technique for transferring the risk of unfavorable price fluctuations to a speculator by purchasing and selling options and futures contracts on an organized exchange.
• High-Risk Automobile Insurer: Company that specializes in insuring motorists who have poor driving records or have been canceled or refused insurance.
• Hold-Harmless Clause: Clause written into a contract by which one party agrees to release another party from all legal liability, such as a retailer who agrees to release the manufacturer from legal liability if the product injures someone.
• Homeowners Policy: A package of insurance providing home owners with a broad range of property and liability coverages.
• Home Service Life Insurance: Industrial life insurance and monthly debit ordinary life insurance contracts that are serviced by agents who call on the policyowners at their homes to collect the premiums. The amount of life insurance per policy generally is larger than $1000.
• Hospice: Health care facility providing medical care and support services such as counseling to terminally ill persons.
• Hospital Admissions Program: An arrangement to facilitate admission of persons covered by health insurance to hospitals and to assure the prompt payment of applicable insurance benefits to hospitals.
• Hospital Expense Insurance: Health insurance protection against the cost of hospital care resulting from the illness or injury of the insured person.
• Hospital Expense Insurance: A form of health insurance that provides specific benefits for daily hospital room and board and hospital services during hospital confinement. Generally the policy also provides benefits for surgical operations and for in- hospital doctor's visits, in which case the policy is referred to as a hospital and Surgical Expense Policy.
• Hospital Indemnity: A form of health insurance which provides a stipulated daily, weekly, or monthly indemnity during hospital confinement. The indemnity is payable on an unallocated basis without regard to the actual expense of hospital confinement.
• Hospital Medical Insurance: A term used to indicate protection which provides benefits for the cost of any or all of the numerous health care services normally covered under various health care plans.
• Hospital Miscellaneous Services: Services other than room and board and general nursing services provided by a hospital during hospital confinement. Included are such items as x- ray examinations, laboratory tests, medicines, surgical dressings, anesthetics (including the administration thereof), and use of operating room.
• Hull Insurance: (1) Class of ocean marine insurance that covers prysical damage to the ship or vessel insured. Typically written on an "all-risks" basis. (2) Physical damage insurance on aircraft- similar to collision insurance in an automobile policy.
• Human Life Value: For purposes of life insurance, the present value of the family's share of the deceased breadwinner's future earnings.
• Hurricane: A tropical storm marked by extremely low barometric pressure and circular winds with a velocity of 75 miles an hour or more.

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I

• Immediate Annuity: An annuity providing for payment to begin immediately.
• Immediate Participation Guarantee Plan: (IPG) Type of pension plan in which all pension contributions are deposited in an unallocated fund and used directly to pay benefits to retirees.
• Imputed Negligence: Case in which responsibility for damage can be transfered from the negligent party to another person, such as an employer.
• Incontestability: Life policies provide that, except for non-payment of premiums and certain other circumstances, the policy shall be incontestable after the policy has been in force for two years during the lifetime of the insured.
• Incontestable Clause: An optional clause which may be used in noncancelable or guaranteed renewable health insurance contracts providing that the insurer may not contest the validity of the contract after it has been in force for two (sometimes three) years.
• Incurred Claims: Incurred claims equal the claims paid during the policy year plus the claim reserves as of the end of the policy year, minus the corresponding reserves as of the beginning of the policy year. The difference between the year end and beginning of the year claim reserves is called the increase in reserves and may be added directly to the paid claims to produce the incurred claims.
• Incurred-but-not-reported (IBNR) reserves: liability account on an insurer's balance sheet reflecting claims that are expected based upon statistical projections but which have not yet been reported to the insurer
• Indemnification: Compensation to the victim of a loss, in whole or in part, by payment, repair, or replacement.
• Indemnity: Legal principle that specifies an insured should not collect more than the actual cash value of a loss but should be restored to approximately the same financial position as existed before the loss. Independent Adjustor: Claims adjustor who offers his or her services to insurance companies and is compensated by a fee.
• Independent Agent: an independent business person who usually represents two or more insurance companies in a sales and service capacity and who is paid on a commission basis.
• Independent Agency System: Type of property and liability insurance marketing system, sometimes called the American agency system, in which the agent is an independent businessperson representing several companies. The agency owns the expirations or renewal rights to the business, and the agent is copensated by commissions that vary by line of insurance.
• Indeterminate Premium Whole Life Insurance: Nonparticipating whole life policy that permits the insurer to adjust premiums based on anticipated future experience. Initial premiums are guaranteed for a certain preriod. After the initial guaranteed period expires, the insurer can increase premiums up to some maximum limit.
• Indirect Loss: See Consequential Loss.
• Individual Contract: A contract of health insurance made with an individual called the policy holder or the insured, which normally covers such individual and, in certain instances, members of his family.
• Individual Deductible: Amount that an insured and each person of his or her family covered by the policy must pay before the group or individual medical insurance policy begins to pay for medical expenses.
• Individual Insurance: Policies which provide protection to the policyholder and/or his/her family. Sometimes called Personal Insurance as distinct from group and blanket insurance.
• Individual Policy Pension Trust: A type of pension plan, frequently used for small groups, administered by trustees who are authorized to purchase individual level premium policies or annuity contracts for each member of the plan. The polices usually provide both life insurance and retirement benefits.
• Individual Retirement Account (IRA): An account to which an individual can make annual contributions of 100% of earnings up to $2,000 ($2,250 for a one-income married couple). These contributions are tax deductible for most workers.
• Industrial Life Insurance: Life insurance issued in small amounts, usually less than $1,000, with premiums payable on a weekly or monthly basis. The premiums are generally collected at the home by an agent of the company. Sometimes referred to as debit insurance.
• Industrial Life Insurance: A class of life insurance that is usually issued with protection amount of less than $1,000 and premiums usually payable weekly or at most, monthly.
• Inflation-Guard Endorsement: Endorsement added at the insured's request to a homeowners policy to increase periodically the face amount of insurance of the dwelling and other policy coverages by a specified percentage.
• Inheritance tax: A tax on the right of an heir to receive property at the death of another.
• Initial Past Service Liability: The actuarial value (single sum) of the past service benefits as of the effective date of the establishment of the plan, or at the date of the latest liberalization. The maximum annual past service contribution allowable for tax deduction is the amount necessary to amortize past service liabilities and other supplementary pension or annuity credits over 10 years. Funding of the past service liability over a period of 30 years (40 in some cases) is required by the Internal Revenue Service under ERISA.
• Initial Reserve: In life insurance, the reserve at the beginning of any policy year.
• Injury Independent of All Other Means: An injury resulting from an accident, provided that the accident was not caused by an illness.
• Inland Marine Insurance: A broad form of insurance, generally covering articles in transit as well as bridges, tunnels and other means of transportation and communication. Besides goods in transit (generally excepting trans-ocean), it includes numerous "floater" policies, such as those covering personal effects, personal property, jewelry, furs, fine arts, and other items.
• Inland Marine Insurance: A broad type of insurance, generally covering articles that may be transported from one place to another as well as bridges, tunnels and other instrumentalities of transportation. It includes goods in transit (generally excepting trans-ocean) as well as numerous "floater" polices such as personal effects, personal property, jewelry, furs, fine art and others.
• Inspection Report: A report (usually written) of an investigation of an applicant, conducted by an independent agency that specializes in insurance investigations. The report covers such matters as occupation, financial status, health history, and moral problems.
• Insolvent: Having insufficient financial resources (assets) to meet financial obligations (liabilities).
• Insurability: Acceptability to the company of an applicant for insurance.
• Insurable Risk: The conditions that make a risk insurable are (a) the peril insured against must produce a definite loss not under the control of the insured, (b) there must be a large number of homogeneous exposures subject to the same perils, (c) the loss must be calculable and the cost of insuring it must be economically feasible, (d) the peril must be unlikely to affect all insureds simultaneously, and (e) the loss produced by a risk must be definite and have a potential to be financially serious.
• Insurance: A system under which individuals, businesses, and other organizations or entities, in exchange for payment of a sum of money (a premium), are guaranteed compensation for losses resulting from certain perils under specified conditions.
• Insurance: Protection by written contract against the financial hazards (in whole or in part) of the happenings of specified fortuitous events.
• Insurance Company: An organization chartered to operate as an insurer.
• Insurance Company: Any corporation primarily engaged in the business of furnishing insurance protection to the public.
• Insurance Commissioner: The top insurance regulatory official in a state.
• Insurance Exchange: Term used to describe a facility that exists in a few states to provide a market for reinsurance and for the insurance of large and unusual domistic and foreign risks that are difficult ot insure in the normal markets. Examples are the New York Insurance Exchange, the Insurance Exchange of the Americas, and the Illinois Inurance Exchange.
• Insurance Examiner: The representative of a state insurance department assigned to participate in the official audit and examination of the affairs of an insurance company.
• Insurance Guaranty Funds: State Funds that provide for the payment of unpaid claims of insolvent insurers.
• Insurance Services Offices (ISO): Major rating organization in property and liability insurance that drafts policy forms for personal and commercial lines of insurance and provides rate data on loss costs for property and liability insurance lines.
• Insured: A person or organization covered by an insurance policy, including the "named insured" and any other parties for whom protection is provided under the policy terms.
• Insured or Insured Life: The person on whose life the policy is issued.
• Insurer: The party to the insurance contract who promises to pay losses or benefits. Also, any corporation engaged primarily in the business of furnishing insurance to the public.
• Insuring Agreement: That part of an insurance contract that states the promises of the insurer.
• Insuring Clause: The clause which sets forth the type of loss being covered by the policy and the parties to the insurance contract.
• Integration: A coordination of pension, disability or other benefit with the other sources of income, such as Social Security benefit, through a specific formula designed to ensure reasonable income replacement.. Qualified plans must integrate so that total benefits are non-discriminatory between rank and file employees and owners, officers or highly compensated employees.
• Inter vivos Trust: A trust created while the creator of the trust is living. Also known as a living trust.
• Interest: Money paid for the use of money.
• Interest-Adjusted Method: Method of determining cost to an insured of a life insurance policy that considers the time cost of money by applying an interest factor to each element of cost. See Also Net payment cost index; surrender cost index.
• Interest Option: Life insurance settlement option in which the principal is retained by teh insurer and interest is paid periodically.
• Intestate: Without a will.
• Investment Income: The income generated by a company's portfolio of investments (such as in bonds, stocks, or other financial ventures).
• Investment Income: The portion of a company's income which is derived from its investments, including interest and dividends on stocks and bonds.
• Investment Only Contract: Type of funding instrument that uses only the investment services of an insurer.
• IPG Plan: See Immediate Participation Guarantee Plan.
• IRA: See Individual Retirement Account.
• Irrevocable Beneficiary: Beneficiary designation allowing no change to be made in the beneficiary of an insurance policy without the beneficiary's consent.
• Irrevocable Trust: A trust in which the creator does not reserve the right to reacquire the trust property.
• ISO: See Insurance Services Office.

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J

• Joint-and-Several Liability: A legal principle that permits the injured party in a tort action to recover the entire amount of compensation due for injuries from any tort feasor who is able to pay, regardless of the degree of that party's negligence.
• Joint-and-Survivor Annuity: A contract that provides income periodically, payable during the longer lifetime of two persons. The amount payable may decrease at the death of one or the other. (See Contingent Annuity Option)
• Joint Tenants: A form of joint property ownership with right of survivorship, i.e., in which the survivors automatically own the share of a deceased co-owner.
• Joint Underwriting Association: One of several types of "shared market" mechanisms used to make automobile insurance available to persons who are unable to obtain such insurance in the regular market. JUAs also have been created in some states to help alleviate availability problems in the fields of medical malpractice and commercial insurance.
• Joint Underwriting Association: A device used to provide insurance to those who cannot obtain insurance in the voluntary market. Certain companies (called carriers) issue policies at one rate level and handle claims, but the ultimate costs are borne by all companies writing insurance in that state.
• Judgment Rating: Rate-making method for which each exposure is individually evaluated and the rate is determined largely by the underwriter's judgment.
• Judicial Bond: Type of surety bond used for court proceedings and guaranteeing that the party bonded willl fulfill certain obligations specified by law, for example, fiduciary responsibilities.
• Jumbo Risk: A risk involving exceptionally high benefits.
• Jumping Juvenile Insurance Policy : Life insurance purchased by parents for children under a specified age. Provides permanent life insurance that increases in face value five times at age twenty-one with no increase in premium.

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K

• Kenney Rule: Concept permitting a property liability insurer to write $2 of new net premiums for each $1 of policyowners' surplus.
• Keogh (HR 10) Account: An account to which a self-employed person can make annual tax deductible contribution of the lesser of 25% of income or $30,000.
• Key-Person Insurance: Insurance designed to protect a business firm against the loss of income resulting from the death or disability of a key employee.

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L

• Labor-Management Relations Act of 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act): This law controls conditions under which an employer may pay any money to a representative of employees.
• Lapse: The termination or discontinuance of an insurance policy due to non-payment of a premium.
• Lapsed Policy: A policy terminated for non-payment of premiums. The term is sometimes limited to a termination occurring before the policy has a cash or other surrender value.
• Larceny-theft: The unlawful taking, carrying, leading or riding away of another person's property.
• Last Clear Chance Rule: Statutory modification of the contributory negligence law allowing the claimant endangered by his or her own negligence to recover damages from a defendant if the defendant has a last clear chance to avoid the accident but fails to do so.
• Law of Large Numbers: Concept that the greater the number of exposures, the more closely will actual results approach the probable results expected from an infinite number of exposures.
• Legal Reserve: The minimum reserve which a company must keep to meet future claims and obligations as they are calculated under the state insurance code.
• Legal Reserve Life Insurance Company: A life insurance company operating under state insurance laws specifying the minimum basis for the reserves the company must maintain on its policies.
• Level Commission Scale: A commission scale providing for payment of commissions at the same rate every year the policy is in force.
• Level Premium: A premium which remains unchanged throughout the life of a policy.
• Level Premium Life Insurance: Life insurance for which the premium remains the same from year to year. The premium is more than the actual cost of protection during the earlier years of the policy and less than the actual cost in the later years. The building of a reserve is a natural result of level premiums. The overpayments in the early years, together with the interest that is to a earned, serve to balance out the underpayments of the later years.
• Liability: Any legally enforceable obligation.
• Liability Insurance: Insurance covering the policyholder's legal liability resulting from injuries to other persons or damage to their property.
• Liability Insurance: Provides protection for the insured against loss arising out of legal liability to third parties.
• Liability Limits: The stipulated sum or sums beyond which an insurance company is not liable to protect the insured.
• Liability Without Fault: Principle on which workers compensation is based, holding the employer absolutely liable for occupational injuries or disease suffered by workers, regardless of who is at fault.
• License and Permit Bond: Type of surety bond guaranteeing that the person bonded will comply with all laws and regulations that govern his or her activities.
• Life Annuity: A series of payments under which payments, once begun, continue throughout the remaining lifetime of the annuitant but not beyond.
• Life Annuity: A contract that provides an income for life.
• Life Annuity With 10 Years Certain: An annuity which pays an income to the annuitant for as long as he or she lives, but if death occurs within 10 years after the annuity payments begin, payments are continued to a named beneficiary for the remainder of the 10 years.
• Life Expectancy: The average number of years of life remaining for a group of persons of a given age according to a particular mortality table.
• Life Income Option: Life insurance settlement option in which the policy proceeds are paid during the lifetime of the beneficiary. A certain number of guaranteed payments may also be payable.
• Life Insurance: Insurance providing for payment of a specified amount on the insured's death, either to his or her estate or to a designated beneficiary; or in the case of an endowment policy, to the policy holder at a specified date.
• Life Insurance in Force: The sum of the face amounts, plus dividend additions, of life insurance polices outstanding at a given time. Additional amounts payable under accidental death or other special provisions are not included.
• Life Insurance Programming: Systematic method of determining the insured's financial goals, which are translated into specific amounts of life insurance, then periodically reviewed for possible changes.
• Lifetime Disability Benefit: A benefit to help replace income lost by an insured person as long as he/she is totally disabled, even for a lifetime.
• Lifetime Disability Benefit: Disability income payable for the life of the insured as long as he is totally disabled.
• Limited Payment Life Insurance: Whole life insurance on which premiums are payable for a specified number of years or until death if death occurs before the end of the specified period.
• Limited Policy: A contract which covers only certain specified diseases or accidents.
• Limited Policy: One that covers only specified accidents or sicknesses.
• Liquidation: Dissolving a company by selling its assets for cash.
• Liquor Liability Law: See Dramshop Law.
• Living Benefits Rider: A rider that allows insureds who are terminally ill or who suffer from certain catastrophic diseases to collect part of their life insurance benefits before they die, primarily to pay for the care they require.
• Living Trust: A trust created while the creator of the trust is living. Also known as an inter vivos trust.
• Loading: The amount that must be added to the pure premium for expenses, profit, and a margin for contingencies.
• Long-Term Care: The continuum of broad-ranged maintenance and health services to the chronically ill, disabled, or retarded. Services may be provided on an inpatient (rehabilitation facility, nursing home, mental hospital), outpatient, or at-home basis.
• Long-Term Disability Income Insurance: Insurance issued to an employer (group) or individual to provide a reasonable replacement of a portion of an employee's earned income lost through serious and prolonged illness or injury during the normal work career. (See also Integration.)
• Loss: The happening of the event for which insurance pays.
• Loss Avoidance: A risk management technique whereby a situation or activity that may result in a loss for a firm is avoided or abandoned.
• Loss control: any conscious action (or decision not to act) intended to reduce the frequency, severity, or unpredictability of accidental losses.
• Loss Expense - Allocated: Handling expenses, such as legal or independent adjuster fees, paid by an insurance company in settling a claim which can be definitely charged to that particular claim.
• Loss Expense - Unallocated: Salaries and other expenses incurred in connection with the operation of a claim department of an insurance carrier which cannot be charged to individual claims.
• Loss Payable Clause: Means of protecting a mortgagee's interest in property by directing the insurer to make a loss payment to the mortgagee in the event of a loss.
• Loss Prevention: Any measure which reduces the probability or frequency of a particular loss but does not eliminate completely all possibility of that loss
• Loss Ratio: The percent which losses bear to premiums for a given period.
• Loss Ratio: The ratio of claims to premiums. It may be calculated in several different ways, using paid premiums or earned premiums, and using paid claims with or without changes in claim reserves and with or without changes in active life reserves.
• Loss Reserve: The amount set up as the estimated cost of a claim. (See IBNR Reserve)
• Lump-Sum Distribution: Payment within one taxable year of the entire balance payable to an employee from a trust which forms part of a qualified pension or employee annuity plan on account of that person's death, separation from service or attainment of age 59«.

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M

• Mail Order Insurer: Type of insurance company that sells policies through the mail or other mass media, eliminating need for agents.
• Major Medical Expense Insurance: A form of health insurance that provides benefits for most types of medical expense up to a high maximum benefit, such as $250,000 or higher after a substantial deductible, such as $500 or more. Such contracts may contain internal limits and are normally subject to coinsurance.
• Major Medical Insurance: Health insurance to finance the expense of major illness and injury. Characterized by large benefit maximums ranging up to $250,000 or no limit, the insurance, above an initial deductible, reimburses the major part of all charges for hospital, doctor, private nurses, medical appliances, prescribed out-of-hospital treatment, drugs, and medicines. The insured person as coinsurer pays the remainder.
• Malingering: The practice of feigning illness or inability to work in order to collect insurance benefits.
• Malpractice: Improper care or treatment by a physician, hospital, or other provider of health care.
• Malpractice Insurance: Coverage for a professional practitioner, such as a doctor or a lawyer, against liability claims resulting from alleged malpractice in the performance of professional services.
• Managed Care: Health care systems that integrate the financing and delivery of appropriate health care services to covered individuals by arrangements with selected providers to furnish a comprehensive set of health care services, explicit standards for selection of health care providers, formal programs for ongoing quality assurance and utilization review, and significant financial incentives for members to use providers and procedures associated with the plan.
• Manual Rate: The premium rate developed for a group insurance coverage from the company's standard rate tables normally referred to as its rate manual or underwriting manual.
• Manuscript Policy: Policy designed for a firm's specific needs and requirements.
• Marine Insurance: A form of insurance primarily concerned with means of transportation and communication, and with goods in transit (see "Inland Marine Insurance" and "Ocean Marine Insurance").
• Marital deduction: A reduction of an estate for estate tax purposes, which is available if the decedent is survived by his or her spouse, can be as large as the administrator or executor elects so long as it does not exceed the value of qualifying property passing to the surviving spouse.
• Market Price (or Market Value): The price at which a security can be bought or sold at any particular time.
• Mass Merchandising: Plan for insuring individual members of a group, such as employees of firms or members of labor unions, under a single program of insurance at reduced premiums. Property and liability insurance is sold to individual members using group insurance marketing methods.
• Master Policy: A policy that is issued to an employer or trustee, establishing a group insurance plan for designated members of an eligible group.
• Master Policy (or Master Contract): The policy issued to a group policyholder setting forth the provisions of the group insurance plan. The individuals insure under the policy are then issued certificates of insurance.
• Material Damage: Insurance against damage to a vehicle itself. It includes automobile comprehensive, collision, fire and theft. Material damage and physical damage are terms that often are used inter- changeably.
• Maximum family benefit: The largest amount in Social Security benefits that will be paid to any family unit.
• McCarran-Ferguson Act: Federal law passed in 1945 stating that continued regulation of the insurance industry by the states is in the public interest and that federal antitrust laws apply to insurance only to the extent that the industry is not regulated by state law.
• Medical Examination: The examination given by a qualified physician to determine to the insurability of an applicant. A medical examination may also be used to determine whether an insured claiming disability is actually disabled.
• Medical Expense Insurance: A form of health insurance that provides benefits for expenses incurred for medical care. This form of health insurance provides benefits for expenses of physicians, hospital, nursing, and related health services, and supplies. These benefits may be related to actual expense, specified sums, or services rendered. Such insurance sometimes includes benefits for prevention and diagnosis as well as treatment.
• Medical malpractice: Improper care or treatment by a physician, hospital, or other provider of health care.
• Medical Payments Insurance: A coverage, available in various liability insurance policies, in which their insurer agrees to reimburse the insured and others, without regard for the insured's liability, for medical or funeral expenses incurred as the result of bodily injury or death by accident under specified conditions.
• Medigap: A term sometimes applied to private insurance products that supplement Medicare insurance benefits.
• Minimum Benefits: A provision that a minimum amount of annuity will be paid if the regular benefit formula produces less. This minimum is usually payable only if certain service requirements are met at retirement.
• Minimum Group: The least number of employees permitted under a state law to effect a group for insurance purposes; the purpose is to maintain some sort of proper division between individual policy insurance and the group forms.
• Minimum Premium Plan (MPP): An arrangement under which an insurance carrier will, for a fee, handle the administration of claims and insure against large claims for a self- insured group.
• Miscellaneous Expenses: Expenses in connection with hospital insurance, hospital charges other than room and board, such as X-rays, drugs, laboratory fees, and other ancillary charges. (Sometimes referred to as ancillary charges.)
• Miscellaneous Hospital Expense Benefit: A provision in a hospital expense policy providing for the payment of a benefit for expenses for necessary hospital services and supplies during a period of hospital confinement. Expenses commonly covered under this benefit include those for x-ray examinations, laboratory tests, medicines, surgical dressings, anesthetics (including administration thereof), and use of operating room.
• Misrepresentation: A false, incorrect, improper, or incomplete statement of a material fact, made in the application for a policy.
• Mode of Premium Payment: The frequency with which premiums are paidþmonthly, quarterly, semiannually, or annually.
• Moral Hazard: Hazard arising from any nonphysical, personal characteristic of a risk that increases the possibility of loss or may intensify the severity of lossþfor instance, bad habits, low integrity, poor financial standing.
• Morbidity: The incidence and severity of sicknesses and accidents in a well-defined class or classes or persons.
• Morbidity Tables: Actuarial statistics showing the frequency and duration of disability.
• Mortality Table: A table showing how many members of a group, starting at a certain age, will be alive at each succeeding age. It is used to calculate the probability of dying in, or surviving through, any period, and for the valuation of an annuity. To be appropriate for a specific group, it should be based on the experience of individuals having common characteristics, such as sex or occupation.
• Mortality Table: A statistical table showing the death rate at each age, usually expressed as so many per thousand.
• Multi-Employer Plan: A plan maintained according to a collective bargaining agreement, to which more than one employer contributes. Under ERISA, at the beginning of the plan, no single employer may contribute as much as 50% of the total, and thereafter as much as 75%. An employee may change employers within the group without losing retirement benefits unless a break in service (under the plan) cancels credits earned before the break.
• Multi-Peril Policy: A package policy which provides protection against a number of separate perils. Multi-peril policies are not necessarily multiple line policies, since the combined perils may be all within one insurance line.
• Multiple Employer Trust (MET): A legal trust established by a plan sponsor that brings together a number of small, unrelated employers for the purpose of providing group medical coverage on an insured or self-funded basis.
• Mutual Insurance Company: An insurance company in which the ownership and control is vested in the policyholders and a portion of surplus earnings may return to policyholders in the form of dividends. No capital stock exists.

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N

• Named Perils: Coverage in a property policy that provides protection against loss from only the perils specifically listed in the policy rather than protection from physical loss. Examples of named perils are fire, windstorm, theft, smoke, etc.
• National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC): The association of insurance commissioners of various states formed to promote national uniformity in the regulation of insurance.
• Negligence: Failure to use the care that a reasonable and prudent person would have used under the same or similar circumstances.
• Net Premium: The portion of the premium rate which is designed to cover benefits of the policy, but not expenses, contingencies, or profit. The term is also used to describe the portion of the premium remitted to the home office by an agent after deduction of the agent's commission.
• Net written premiums: premium income retained by insurance companies, directly or through reinsurance, after payments made for reinsurance.
• No-Fault: A type of auto insurance mechanism whereby the right to sue another party for damages caused by negligence is limited and, in exchange, expanded first party benefits are offered.
• No-fault Automobile Insurance: A form of insurance by which a person's financial losses resulting from an automobile accident are paid by his or her own insurer regardless of who was at fault.
• Non-admitted Insurance Company: An insurance company not licensed to do business in a particular state; such a company, however, may sell excess and surplus insurance in that state if admitted insurers lack the capacity or expertise.
• Noncancellable: A contract that the insured has the right to continue in force by the timely payments of premiums set forth in the contract (1) until at least age 50 or (2) in the case of a policy issued after age 44 for at least five years from its date of issue, during which period the insurer has no right to make unilaterally any change in any provision of the contract while the contract is in force.
• Noncancellable Guaranteed Renewable Policy: An individual policy which the insured person has the right to continue to force until a specified age, such as to age 65, by the timely payment of premiums. During this period, the insurer has no right to unilaterally make any changes in any provision of the policy while it is in force.
• Nonconfining Sickness: A sickness that disables the insured person but does not confine him to his home or a hospital.
• Noncontributory: A term applied to employee benefit plans under which the employer bears the full cost of the benefits for the employees. One hundred percent of the eligible employees must be insured.
• Nondisabling Injury: An injury which may require medical care, but does not result in loss of working time or income.
• Nondisabling Injury Benefit: A benefit in some disability income policies providing payment for medical expense due to injury when medical care is necessary but the insured is not totally disabled.
• Nonforfeiture Option: One of the choices available if the policyholder discontinues premium payments on a policy with a cash value. This, if any, may be taken in cash, as extended term insurance or as reduced paid-up insurance.
• Nonmedical Limit: The maximum face value of a policy that a given company will issue without the applicant taking a medical examination.
• Nonoccupational Policy: Contract which insures a person against off-the-job accident or sickness. It does not cover disability resulting from injury or sickness covered by Workers' Compensation. Group accident and sickness policies are frequently non- occupational.
• Nonoccupational Policy: One that provides off-the-job coverage only; it does not cover loss resulting from accidents or sickness arising out of or in the course of employment or covered under any workers' compensation law.
• Nonparticipating Insurance: Plan of insurance under which the policy-holder is not entitled to share in the dividend distribution of the company.
• Nonparticipating Policy: A life insurance policy in which the company does not distribute to policyholders any part of its surplus. Note should be taken that premiums for nonparticipating polices are usually lower than for comparable participating polices. Note should also be taken that some nonparticipating polices have both a maximum premium and a current lower premium. The current premium reflects anticipated experience that is more favorable than the company is willing to guarantee, and it may be changed from time to time for the entire block of business to which the policy belongs. (See also: Participating policy)
• Nonparticipating Policy: One that does not provide for the payment of a dividend.
• Nonprofit Insurers: Persons organized under special state laws to provide hospital, medical, or dental insurance on a nonprofit basis. The laws exempt them from certain types of taxes.

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O
 

• Occupational Hazards: Occupations which expose the insured to greater than normal physical danger by the very nature of the work in which the insured is engaged, and the varying periods of absence from the occupation, due to the disability, that can be expected.
• Occurrence: An accident, including continuous or repeated exposure to substantially the same general, harmful conditions, that results in bodily injury or property damage during the period of an insurance policy.
• Occurrence policy: A liability insurance policy that covers claims arising out of occurrences that take place during the policy period, regardless of when the claim is filed.
• Ocean Marine Insurance: Insurance for sea-going vessels, including liabilities connected with them, and their cargoes.
• Ocean Marine Insurance: Coverage on all types of vessels, including liabilities connected with them, and on their cargoes.
• Operating Ratio: The sum of expenses and losses expressed as a percent of earned premium.
• Optionally Renewable Contract: A contract of health insurance in which the insurer reserves the right to terminate the coverage at any anniversary or, in some cases, at any premium due date, but does not have the right to terminate coverage between such dates.
• Ordinary Life Insurance: Life insurance usually issued in amounts of $1,000 or more with premiums payable on an annual, semi-annual, quarterly or monthly basis.
• Ordinary Life: Synonymous With Whole Life and Straight Life: The three terms are applied to the type of policy which continues during the whole of the insured's life and provides for the payment of amount insured at this death.
• Overhead Expense Insurance: A special form of health insurance designed to help offset overhead expenses such as office rent, utilities, employees' wages, and auditors' fees, incurred during total disability. The monthly payments during disability is not a fixed amount of indemnity as on regular disability polices, but the amount of overhead expense actually incurred, or a percentage thereof, up to the limit specified in the policy.
• Overhead Insurance: A type of short-term disability income contract that reimburses the insured person for specified, fixed monthly expenses, normal and customary in the operation and conduct of his/her business or office.
• Over-the Counter Market: A means of buying and selling securities that are not listed on a stock exchange. Negotiations are carried out by telephone or computer network.
• Overriding Commission (Overwrite): A commission paid to general agents or agency managers in addition to the commission paid the soliciting agent or broker.

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P

• Package Policy: A combination of two or more individual polices or coverages into a single policy. A homeowners policy, for example, is a package combining property, liability and theft coverages for the homeowner.
• Paid-up Insurance: Insurance on which all required premiums have been paid. The term is frequently used to mean the reduced paid-up insurance available as a nonforfeiture option.
• Paramedical Examination: Physical examination of an applicant by a trained person other than a physician.
• Partial Disability: The result of an illness or injury which prevents an insured from performing one or more of the functions of his/her regular job.
• Partial Disability: A benefit sometimes found in disability income policies providing for the payment of reduced monthly income in the event the insured cannot work full time and/or is prevented from performing one or more important daily duties pertaining to his occupation.
• Participating Insurance: Insurance issued by an insurance company providing participation in dividend distribution.
• Participating Policy: A life insurance policy under which the company agrees to distribute to policyholders the part of its surplus which its Board of Directors determines is not needed at the end of the business year. Such a distribution serves to reduce the premium the policyholder had paid. (See also: Policy dividend; Nonparticipating policy)
• Participating Policy: One under which the policy owner is entitled to receive shares of the divisible surplus of the insurer. Such shares are commonly called dividends.
• Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC): The Federal body responsible for administering the plan termination insurance program under ERISA.
• Pension Benefits: A series of payments to be provided in accordance with the plan of benefits.
• Pension Plan: A plan established and maintained by an employer, group of employers, union or any combination, primarily to provide for the payment of definitely determinable benefits to participants after retirement.
• Percentage Participation: A provision in a health insurance contract that the insurer and insured will share covered losses in agreed proportions. Also see Coinsurance.
• Peril: The cause of a loss insured against in a policy.
• Peril: The cause of a possible loss, such as fire, windstorm, theft, explosion, or riot.
• Permanent Life Insurance: A phrase used to cover any form of life insurance except term; generally insurance that accrues cash value, such as whole life or endowment.
• Persistency: A term used to refer to the length of time insurance remains continuously in force.
• Persistency: The degree to which policies stay in force through the continued payment of renewal premiums.
• Personal Articles Floater: A form of coverage designed to meet the needs for insurance on property of a moveable nature. The coverage usually protects against all physical loss, subject to special exclusions and conditions. Examples of property covered include jewelry, furs, silverware, fine arts.
• Personal Injury Protection (PIP): First-party no-fault coverage in which an insurer pays, within the specified limits, the wage loss, medical, hospital and funeral expenses of the insured.
• Personal Lines: Those types of insurance, such as auto or home insurance, for individuals or families rather than for businesses or organizations.
• Personal representative:A person appointed through the will of a deceased or by a court to settle the estate of one who dies.
• Physical Damage: Damage to or loss of the auto resulting from collision, fire, theft or other perils.
• Physician's Expense Insurance: Coverage which provides benefits toward the cost of such services as doctor's fees for nonsurgical care in the hospital, at home or in a physician's office, and X-rays or laboratory tests performed outside the hospital. (Also called Regular Medical expense Insurance.)
• Plan Administrator: The person or persons controlling the money or property contributed to the plan, usually designated in the plan agreement.
• Point-of-Service Plans: Often known as open-ended HMOs or PPOs, these plans permit insureds to choose providers outside the plan yet are designed to encourage the use of network providers.
• Policy: The printed legal document stating the terms of the insurance contract that is issued to the policyholder by the company.
• Policy: A contract of insurance.
• Policy: The legal document issued by the company to the policyholder, which outlines the conditions and terms of the insurance; also called the policy contract or the contract.
• Policy Dividend: A refund of part of the premium on a participating life insurance policy reflecting the difference between the premium charged and actual experience.
• Policy Loan: A loan made by a life insurance company from its general funds to a policyholder on the security of the cash value of a policy.
• Policy Reserves: The measure of the funds that a life insurance company holds specifically for fulfillment of its policy obligations. Reserves are required by law to be so calculated that, together with future premium payments and anticipated interest earnings, they will enable the company to pay all future claims.
• Policy Term: That period for which an insurance policy provides coverage.
• Policyholder: The person who owns a life insurance policy. This is usually the insured person, but it may also be a relative of the insured, a partnership or a corporation.
• Policyholder: A person who pays a premium to an insurance company in exchange for the insurance protection provided by a policy of insurance.
• Policyholders' Surplus: Sum left after liabilities are deducted from assets. Sums such as paid-in capital and special voluntary reserves are also included in this term. This surplus is an additional financial protection to policyholders in the event a company suffers unexpected or catastrophic losses. In effect, it is the financial base that permits a company to sell insurance.
• Pollution Liability: Exposure to lawsuits for injury or cleanup costs that result from pollution damage
• Pool: An organization of insurers or reinsurers through which particular types of risk are underwritten and premiums, losses and expenses are shared in agreed-upon amounts.
• Portability: The transfer of pension rights and credits when a worker changes jobs.
• Preadmission Certification: Process in which a health care professional evaluates an attending physician's request for a patient's admission to a hospital by using established medical criteria.
• Preexisting Condition: A physical and/or mental condition of an insured which first manifested itself prior to the issuance of his/her policy or which existed prior to issuance and for which treatment was received.
• Preexisting Condition: A physical condition that existed before the effective date of coverage.
• Preferred Provider Organization (PPO): An arrangement whereby a third-party payer contracts with a group of medical care providers who furnish services at lower than usual fees in return for prompt payment and a certain volume of patients.
• Preferred Stock: Evidence of ownership which entitles the owners to receive dividends from the corporation before the common stockholders and which usually also provides a prior claim to corporate assets if the corporation is dissolved.
• Premium: The sum paid by a policyholder to keep an insurance policy in force.
• Premium finance: allows the insured to pay part of the premium when coverage takes effect and pay the rest during the policy period.
• Premium Loan: A policy loan made for the purpose of paying premiums.
• Premium Tax: A tax, imposed by each state, on the premium income of insurers doing business in the state.
• Prepaid Group Practice Plan: A plan under which specified health services are rendered by participating physicians to an enrolled group of persons, with a fixed periodic payment in advance made by or on behalf of each person or family. If a health insurance carrier is involved, a contract to pay in advance for the full range of health services to which the insured is entitled under the terms of the health insurance contract. Such a plan is one form of Health Maintenance Organization (HMO).
• Primary Beneficiary: See Beneficiary.
• Primary Insurance: Insurance that pays compensation for a loss ahead of any other insurance coverages the policyholder may have.
• Principal Sum: The amount payable in one sum in the event of accidental death and in, some cases, accidental dismemberment. When a contract provides benefits for both accidental death and accidental dismemberment, each dismemberment benefit is an amount equal to the principal sum or some fraction thereof.
• Probate: The court-supervised process of validating or establishing a distribution for assets of a deceased including the payment of outstanding obligations.
• Probate estate That portion of the assets and liabilities whose distribution is supervised by the courts in the probate process.
• Probationary Period: A period from the policy date to a specified time, usually 15 to 30 days, during which no sickness coverage is effective. It is designed to eliminate a sickness actually contracted before the policy went into effect.
• Product Liability: legal liability incurred by a manufacturer, merchant, or distributor because of injury or damage resulting from the use of its product.
• Product Liability Insurance: Protection against financial loss arising out of the legal liability incurred by a manufacturer, merchant, or distributor because of injury or damage resulting from the use of a covered product.
• Professional Review Organization (PRO): An organization in which practicing physicians assume responsibility for reviewing the propriety and quality of health care services provided under Medicare and Medicaid.
• Proof of Loss: Documentation presented to the insurance company by the insured in support of a claim so that the insurer can determine its liability under the policy.
• Proof of Loss: Documentary evidence required by an insurer to prove a valid claim exists. It usually consists of a claim form completed by the insured and the insured's attending physician. For medical expense insurance itemized bills must also be included.
• Property Damage Coverage: An agreement by an insurance carrier to protect an insured against legal liability for damage by an insured automobile to the property of another.
• Property Insurance: Insurance providing financial protection against the loss of, or damage to, real and personal property caused by such perils as fire, theft, windstorm, hail, explosion, riot, aircraft, motor vehicles, vandalism, malicious mischief, riot and civil commotion, and smoke.
• Property Insurance: Provides financial protection against loss or damage to the insured's property caused by such perils as fire, windstorm, hail, etc.
• Proration: The adjustment of benefits paid because of a mistake in the amount of the premiums paid or the existence of other insurance covering the same accident or disability.
• Prospective Payment: An advancement of payment for health care charges that are likely to occur.
• Prototype Plan: A standardized plan, approved and qualified as to its concept by the Internal Revenue Service, which is made available by life insurance companies, banks and mutual funds for employers' use.
• Provision: A part (clause, sentence, paragraph, etc.) of an insurance contract that describes or explains a feature, benefit, condition, requirement, etc. of the insurance protection afforded by the contract.
• Proximate Cause: The dominating cause of loss or damage; an unbroken chain of events between the occurrence and damage.
• Punitive Damages: a court-awarded amount that exceeds the economic losses and general damages of a defendant and is intended solely to punish the plaintiff

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Q

• Qualification Period: The period during which the insured must be totally disabled before becoming eligible for residual disability benefits.
• Qualified Impairment Insurance: A form of substandard or special class insurance, which restricts benefits for the insured person's particular condition.
• Qualified Plan: A plan which the Internal Revenue Service approves as meeting the requirements of Section 401(a) of the 1954 Internal Revenue Code. Such plans receive tax advantages.
• Qualified terminable interest property: A category of property, created by the Economic Recovery Tax Act, which by a deceased spouse's will entitles the surviving spouse to all income from the property for life, with that income payable at least annually, and precludes anyone including the spouse from appointing the property to anyone else during the spouse's life.

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R

• Rate: The pricing factor upon which the insurance buyer's premium is based.
• Rated Policy: Sometimes called an "extra-risk" policy, an insurance policy issued at a higher-than-standard premium rate to cover the extra risk where, for example, an insured has impaired health or a hazardous occupation.
• Ratemaking: The statistical process by which insurers determine risks and pricing for the basic classes of insurance.
• Rating Territory: A geographical grouping in which like hazards tend to equalize and permit the establishment of an equitable rate for the territory.
• Reasonable and Customary Charge: A charge for health care, which is consistent with the going rate or charge in a certain geographical area for identical or similar services.
• Rebating: Giving any valuable consideration, usually all or part of the commission, to the prospect or insured as an inducement to buy or renew. Rebating is prohibited by law.
• Recurring Claim Provision: A provision in some health insurance policies which specifies a length of time during which the recurrence of a condition is considered to be a continuation of a previous period of disability or hospital confinement.
• Recurring Clause: A provision in some health insurance policies, which specifies a period of time during which the recurrence of a condition is considered a continuation of a prior period of disability or hospital confinement.
• Reduced Paid-up Insurance: A form of insurance available as a nonforfeiture option. It provides for continuation of the original insurance plan, but for a reduced amount.
• Regulation: Supervision of business practices by a governmental entity.
• Rehabilitation: (1) Restoration of a totally disabled person to a meaningful occupation, (2) a provision in some long- term disability policies that provides for continuation of benefits or other financial assistance while a totally disabled insured is retraining or attempting to resume productive employment.
• Reimbursement: The payment of the expenses actually incurred as a result of an accident or sickness, but not to exceed any amount specified in the policy.
• Reinstatement: The resumption of coverage under a policy which has lapsed.
• Reinsurance: Assumption by one insurance company of all or part of a risk undertaken by another insurance company.
• Reinsurance: The acceptance by one or more insurers, called reinsurers, of a portion of the risk underwritten by another insurer who has contracted for the entire coverage.
• Reinsurance : The purchase of insurance by an insurance company from another insurance company (reinsurer) to provide it protection against large losses on cases it has already insured.
• Reinsurance Facility: An alternative mechanism to service those insureds that cannot obtain insurance in the voluntary market. Premiums and losses for the business that is ceded to the facility are pooled and all insurers share according to their proportion of the voluntary market.
• Renewable Term Insurance: Term insurance which can be renewed at the end of the term, at the option of the policyholder and without evidence of insurability, for a limited number of successive terms. The rates increase at each renewal as the age of the insured increases.
• Renewal: Continuance of coverage under a policy beyond its original term by the insurer's acceptance of the premium for a new policy term.
• Renter's Policy: A package type of insurance that includes coverage similar to a homeowners policy to cover the personal property of a renter or tenant in a building.
• Replacement: The substitution of health insurance coverage from one policy contract to another.
• Replacement Cost: The cost to repair or replace property at construction costs prevailing at time of loss; the cost to repair or rebuild property without considering depreciation. (See Actual Cash Value)
• Replacement ratio: The percentage of income before retirement that is required to be replaced to maintain the same standard of living after retirement.
• Representation: Statements made by an applicant in the application, which he represents as being substantially true to the best of his knowledge and belief, but which are not warranted as exact in every detail.
• Rescission: Termination of an insurance contract by the insurer on the grounds of material misstatement on the application for insurance. The action of rescission must take place within the contestable period or Time Limit on Certain Defenses but takes effect as of the date of issue of the policy, thus voiding the contract from its inception.
• Reservation of Rights: An arrangement whereby an insurer defends a case without commitment to provide coverage in the event that the facts disclosed during the trial reveal that the occurrence is not covered.
• Reserve: (1) An amount representing liabilities kept by an insurer to provide for future commitments under policies outstanding. (2) An amount allocated for a special purpose. Note that a reserve is usually a liability and not an extra fund.
• Residual Disability: A period of partial disability that immediately follows a period of total disability. Benefits for residual disability are paid on a pro-rata basis, depending on the percentage of earnings loss.
• Residual Disability Benefits: A provision in an insurance policy that provides benefits in proportion to a reduction of earnings as a result of disability, as opposed to the inability to work full-time.
• Residual Market: A system through which insurance is made available to buyers that represent unusually high risks.
• Residual Market: A source of insurance available to applicants who are unable to obtain insurance through ordinary methods in the voluntary market. (See AIP, JUA, Facility)
• Retention: The net amount of risk retained by an insurance company for its own account or that of specified others, and not reinsured.
• Retention: The amount of the risk kept for oneself, as opposed to the amount it insures (or reinsures) with another.
• Retrocession: The process by which a reinsurer obtains reinsurance from another company.
• Retrospective Date: The first date for which claims will be paid under a claims-made policy of liability insurance.
• Retrospective Rating: Rating procedure which allows adjustment of an insured's final rate on the basis of the insured's own loss experience.
• Revocable Trust: A trust that can be terminated or revoked by its creator.
• Rider: A document which amends the policy or certificate. It may increase or decrease benefits, waive the condition of coverage or in any other way amend the original contract.
• Rider: A special policy provision or group of provisions that may be added to a policy to expand or limit the benefits otherwise payable.
• Rider: A document that modifies the policy. It may increase or decrease benefits, waive a condition or coverage, or in any other way amend the original contract.
• Right of Survivorship:At the death of one co-owner of property, that person's interest in the property automatically passes to the surviving joint tenant or tenants.
• Risk: The chance of loss. Also used to refer to the insured or to property covered by a policy.
• Risk: Any chance of loss.
• Risk: A term used to refer to a person or the peril insured.
• Risk Classification: The process by which a company decides how its premium rates for life insurance should differ according to the risk characteristics of individuals insured (e.g., age, occupation, sex, state of health) and then applies the resulting rules to individual applications. (See: Underwriting)
• Risk control: any conscious action (or decision not to act) intended to reduce the frequency, severity, or unpredictability of accidental losses.
• Risk Retention Group: An alternative form of insurance in which members of a similar profession or business band together to self insure their risks.
• Robbery: The taking of property from a person by force or threat of violence.

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• Salvage: Recovery made by an insurance company by the sale of property which has been taken over from the insured as a part of loss settlement.
• Self- Administered (Trusteed or Directly Invested) Plan: A plan funded through a fiduciary, generally a bank, but sometimes a group of individuals, which directly invests the accumulated funds. Retirement payments are made from the fund as they fall due.
• Self-Administration: The procedure where an employer maintains all records regarding the employees covered under a group insurance plan.
• Self-Insured Retention: A form of risk financing through which a firm assumes all or a part of its own losses.
• Senior Citizen Policies: Contracts insuring persons 65 years of age or more. In most cases, these policies supplement the coverage afforded by the government under the Medicare program.
• Separate Account: A fund held by a life insurance company which is separate and apart from its general assets and is generally used for investment of pension assets in common stocks.
• Separate Account: An asset account established by a life insurance company separate from other funds, used primarily for pension plans and variable life products. This arrangement permits wider latitude in the choice of investments, particularly in equities.
• Service-Type Plans: Plans that provide their benefits in the form of services rendered rather than cash (for example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield).
• Settlement Options: The several ways, other than immediate payment in cash, which a policyholder or beneficiary may choose to have policy benefits paid.
• Short-Term Disability Income Insurance: The provision to pay benefits to a covered disabled person as long as he/she remains disabled up to a specified period not exceeding two years.
• Sickness Insurance: A form of health insurance providing benefits for loss resulting from illness or disease.
• Skip person: a beneficiary who is at least two generations younger than the person making the transfer.
• Social Security Freeze: A long- term disability policy provision which establishes that the offset from benefits paid by Social Security will not be changed regardless of subsequent changes in the Social Security law.
• Social Security Option: An option under which the employee may elect that monthly payments of an annuity before a specified age (62 or 65) be increased, and that payments thereafter be decreased to produce, as nearly as practical, a level total annual annuity to the employee, including Social Security benefits when they become due.
• Soft Market: That part of the insurance sales cycle in which competition is at a maximum as insurance companies use their excess capacity to sell more policies at lower prices (see "Hard market"). 
• Special Damages: Compensation awarded for actual economic losses, such as medical expenses and lost wages. (See general damages)
• Special Risk Insurance: Coverage for risks or hazards of a special or unusual nature.
• Split Funding: The use of two or more funding agencies for the same pension plan. An arrangement whereby a portion of the contributions to the pension plan are paid to a life insurance company and the remainder of the contributions invested through a corporate trustee, primarily in equities.
• Spouse's Benefit: Payments to the surviving spouse of a deceased employee, usually in the form of a series of payments upon meeting certain requirements and usually terminating with the survivor's remarriage or death.
• Standard Insurance: Insurance written on the basis of regular morbidity underwriting assumption used by an insurance company and issued at normal rates.
• Standard Markets: insurance companies for which the vast majority of people qualify
• Standard Provision: Those contract provisions generally required by state statutes until superseded by the uniform policy provision.
• Standard Provisions: A set of policy provisions prescribed by former laws setting forth certain rights and obligations of both the insured and the company under an individual policy of health insurance. These were originally introduced in 1912 and have now been replaced by the Uniform Provisions.
• Standard Risk: A person who, according to a company's underwriting standards, is entitled to purchase insurance protection without extra rating or special restrictions.
• State Disability Plan: A plan for accident and sickness, or disability insurance required by state legislation of those employers doing business in that particular state.
• State Fund: A fund set up by a state government to provide a specific line or lines of insurance. Some state permit private insurers to compete with the state fund.
• State Insurance Department: A department of a state government whose duty is to regulate the business of insurance and give the public information on insurance.
• State-of-the-Art Defense: An argument used in product liability cases that the technology needed to avoid the loss in a particular case did not exist at the time of the product's manufacture
• Statutory Accounting: Special accounting practices for insurance companies required by state law and designed to provide greater protection for the public against potential insolvency of these essential institutions.
• Statutory Accounting Principles (SAP): Principles required by statute which must be followed by an insurance company when submitting its financial statements to the various state insurance departments. Such principles differ from the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).
• Statutory Surplus:  the amount left after a company's liabilities are subtracted from assets when both those values are computed using Statutory Accounting Principles (SAP)
• Statutory Underwriting Profit or Loss: Premiums earned less losses and expenses.
• Step-Rate Premium: A rating structure in which the premiums increase periodically at pre-determined times such as policy years or attained ages.
• Step-up in basis:An increase in the tax basis of property to the value claimed in the taxable estate of a decedent.
• Stock Company: A company organized and owned by stockholders, as distinguished from the mutual form of company which is owned by its policyholders.
• Stock Exchange: An organization that provides a facility for buyers and sellers of listed securities to come together to make grades in those securities.
• Stockholder (or shareholder): A person who owns shares of stock in a corporation.
• Stock Insurance Company: A company in which the legal ownership and control is vested in the stockholders.
• Stock Life Insurance Company: A life insurance company owned by stockholders who elect a board to direct the company's management. Stock companies, in general, issue nonparticipating insurance, but may also issue participating insurance. Stock Redemption Plan: an entity purchase form of buy-sell agreement within a corporation that involves the corporation buying back shares from a departing owner.
• Straight Life Insurance: Whole life insurance on which premiums are payable for life.
• Strict Liability: Liability for damages even though fault or negligence cannot be proven.
• Subrogation: Process by which one insurance company seeks reimbursement from another company or person for a claim it has already paid.
• Substandard (Impaired Risk): A risk that cannot meet the normal health requirements of a standard health insurance policy. Protection is provided in consideration of a waiver, a special policy form, or a higher premium charge. Substandard risks may include those persons who engage in certain sports and persons who are rated because of poor habits or morals.
• Substandard Insurance: Insurance issued with an extra premium or special restriction to those persons who do not qualify for insurance at standard rates.
• Substandard Risk: An individual, who, because of health history or physical limitations, does not measure up to the qualification of a standard risk.
• Supplementary Contract: An agreement between a life insurance company and a policyholder or beneficiary by which the company retains the cash sum payable under an insurance policy and makes payments in accordance with the settlement option chosen.
• Surety Bond: An agreement providing for monetary compensation in the event of a failure to perform specified acts within a stated period. The surety company, for example, becomes responsible for fulfillment of a contract if the contractor defaults.
• Surgical Expense Insurance: Health insurance policies, which provide benefits toward the physician's or surgeon's operating fees. Benefits may consist of scheduled amounts for each surgical procedure.
• Surgical Schedule: A list of cash allowances attached to the policy, which are payable for various types of surgery, with a maximum amount based upon the severity of the operation.
• Surgical Schedule: A list of maximum amounts payable by the policy for various types of surgery, with the amount based on the severity of the operation.
• Surplus: The amount by which the value of an insurer's assets exceeds its liabilities, i.e., the net worth of an insurance company.
• Surplus Lines: (1) A risk or a part of a risk for which there is no normal insurance market available. (2) Insurance written by non-admitted insurance companies.

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V

W

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Z
No words beginning with "Z" have been included in the glossary at this time.

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