Non-Life Insurance Products and Coverages
Product families
Property (fire, allied perils, business interruption) covers damage to insured property; liability covers legal liability to third parties (general, product, professional, employer’s); motor splits into Motor Third-Party Liability (MTPL, mandatory) and casco (own-damage, voluntary); accident pays fixed benefits for bodily injury; health reimburses or provides services; transport (cargo and hull) uses Incoterms and institute cargo clauses; agricultural covers crops, livestock and yields, often with index or weather triggers.
Key concepts
- MTPL is compulsory, covers bodily injury and property damage to third parties, and is supervised for tariffs and claims handling; the Guarantee Fund handles uninsured/untraced drivers and insolvent insurers.
- Casco is voluntary own-damage cover; exclusions (e.g. unlicensed driving, intentional acts) are common exam traps.
- Liability policies respond to legally owed damages, not contractual penalties; claims-made vs occurrence triggers matter.
- Cargo cover depends on the agreed Institute Cargo Clauses (A/B/C); (C) is narrowest.
- Agricultural cover often uses parametric/weather-index triggers, which pay on the index, not on proved loss.
Traps
Confusing MTPL with casco; assuming liability cover pays contractual fines; mixing occurrence and claims-made triggers; treating index-based agricultural cover as indemnity-based.
Rule of thumb
Ask: what is insured - property, liability, or a person? Then: is cover mandatory or voluntary? Then: occurrence or claims-made; indemnity or fixed/parametric? This triage resolves most product questions.