Personal- and commercial-lines insurance policies are nuanced. If you know how each policy will respond to an insurance claim, you can help your clients be better prepared ahead of time.
Quiz yourself with the following examples:
Do both personal- and commercial-lines policies provide flood coverage for policyholders? That’s an easy one.
How about this? An insured is authorized to grow and consume marijuana for medical purposes because medicinal marijuana is legal in her state. One night, her marijuana plants are stolen. Would the insured’s homeowners policy provide coverage to compensate for her damages?
Or this one? A tenant and his landlord are both sued for damages. However, the tenant—your insured—forgot to tell you that, per his rental lease, he was required to list his landlord as an additional insured on his renters policy. Even though your insured forgot to add the landlord to his policy, is the landlord considered an additional insured automatically since the lease agreement (an insured contract) required it?
One more: James takes his dad’s company car for a joy ride and gets into an accident. Will James’ dad’s personal auto policy cover it? How about his business auto policy? This one’s a little trickier.
When agents can quickly and reliably point to the differences between these two complex types of policies, they ensure that their clients are taken care of properly. And, it can help agents avoid costly errors-and-omissions claims.
Test yourself at trivia
Are you interested in testing your personal- and commercial-lines knowledge? You can quiz yourself during Insurance Trivia: Testing Your Personal Lines & Commercial Lines Knowledge with Steve Lyon, CPCU, CIC, CRM, CRIS, AAI, ARM, AIS, MLIS, AFIS, TRIP, which is available through PIA Northeast as an on-demand webinar.
Alexandra Chouinard
Alexandra Chouinard has editing, writing, advertising and publishing experience from her Alma Mater, Loyola University, where she earned a dual Bachelor of Arts Degree in Writing and Communication.
