Life, Health and Personal Lines Insurance
Life insurance
Know term, whole life, endowment, and universal life, and the difference between protection and savings elements. Understand sum assured, surrender value, paid-up value, and bonuses. Underwriting relies on mortality, morbidity, age, health, occupation, and lifestyle. Key contract features include the free-look period, grace period, incontestability, suicide exclusion, and reinstatement. Nomination and beneficiary rules determine who receives proceeds.
Health insurance
Health cover addresses medical expenses and income replacement. Understand deductibles, co-payment, waiting periods, pre-existing condition clauses, sub-limits, and network arrangements. Distinguish indemnity (reimbursement of actual costs) from fixed benefit products. Know that pre-existing conditions are usually excluded for a defined period and that full disclosure of medical history is essential.
Personal lines
Home, motor, travel, and personal accident policies are personal lines. Understand sum insured, market value, agreed value, excess, no-claim discount, and third-party liability. Motor policies typically distinguish own-damage cover from third-party liability, which may be compulsory.
Traps and worked example
Examiners test the free-look period (a right to cancel for a refund shortly after issue) against the grace period (time to pay an overdue premium). Do not confuse surrender value with sum assured. Worked example: a policyholder stops paying after three years on a whole-life policy; the policy may continue as a reduced paid-up policy rather than lapse entirely, depending on terms. Rule of thumb: read the policy schedule for the exact waiting, grace, and reinstatement periods.