CT Property & Casualty common mistakes
CT Property & Casualty · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When a question asks who has authority over a Connecticut producer's license, a rate or form filing, or an insurer's market conduct, the candidate selects the NAIC, the federal government, or the insurer's domicile state instead of the Connecticut Insurance Commissioner.
Study material discusses NAIC model laws and federal statutes so often that candidates absorb 'NAIC regulates insurance' as a fact, and the McCarran-Ferguson delegation of authority to the states never gets anchored.
What to do instead
For every regulation item, default to the Connecticut Insurance Commissioner and Connecticut statutes, and treat the NAIC strictly as a model-law drafting association with no enforcement power. Build a separate short list of 'who does what': Commissioner = licensing, rate/form review, market conduct exams, penalties; guaranty association = insurer insolvency claims; NFIP/FEMA = flood insurance, not solvency.
Uses indemnity or insurable-interest reasoning to resolve a question about a life policy, or treats a misstatement on an application the same way regardless of whether it was a representation, a warranty, or concealment.
The general concepts chapter is read early and skimmed later; the principles all sound like variations of 'be honest and be made whole,' so the distinctions collapse under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Build a one-page four-column table: principle, definition, where it applies, and what it voids. Record the traps explicitly: indemnity does not apply to life insurance; insurable interest must exist at inception (and at time of loss for property); representation = believed true to the best of knowledge, warranty = must be literally true, concealment = intentional silence about a material fact. Then drill the remedies: misrepresentation generally allows rescission, breach of warranty can void coverage for the claim.
Runs a coinsurance penalty on every property loss, or drops the multiplication step by paying (limit carried / required insurance) instead of (limit carried / required insurance) x amount of loss.
The formula is memorized as a fraction string rather than as a sequence of steps, so under time pressure the candidate stops after the ratio and never applies it to the loss or checks the policy limit cap.
What to do instead
Use the same four-line scratch template on every coinsurance item: (1) value at time of loss x coinsurance percentage = required insurance; (2) limit carried / required = ratio; (3) if ratio is 1 or more, no penalty - pay the loss up to the limit; (4) if ratio is under 1, pay ratio x loss, never more than the limit. Also memorize that the coinsurance penalty belongs to commercial property forms, while homeowners policies use insurance-to-value conditions instead.
Applies contributory negligence when the facts describe a comparative-negligence or last-clear-chance situation, or says res ipsa loquitur 'proves' negligence rather than permitting an inference of it.
Negligence doctrines are taught abstractly and the answer choices are worded so that whichever doctrine the candidate saw most recently looks correct; the fact patterns deliberately contain acts by both parties.
What to do instead
Attach one trigger phrase to each doctrine and recite it before reading the choices: 'any negligence by the plaintiff bars recovery' = contributory; 'recovery reduced by the plaintiff's percentage' = comparative; 'the accident itself permits an inference of negligence' = res ipsa loquitur; 'a foreseeable intervening act does not break the chain' = proximate cause. Then practice on two-part facts where both a plaintiff act and a defendant act appear, deciding which doctrine the facts actually invoke.
Answers dwelling policy items using homeowners logic - assumes personal liability and medical payments to others are built into the DP forms, assumes theft is covered under the DP-1, or assumes the dwelling must be owner-occupied.
The dwelling policy is studied immediately after homeowners and the forms look nearly identical on the page, so the differences that matter get glossed over.
What to do instead
Memorize the dwelling baseline and say it before answering: DP-1 basic named perils, DP-2 broad named perils, DP-3 special form on the dwelling; Section I property only, with liability and medical payments requiring an endorsement; eligible risks include rented dwellings and up to four-family occupancies, but not boarding houses or commercial occupancies. Whenever a dwelling question mentions liability, medical payments, or theft, check whether an endorsement or the correct form level is stated before choosing.
Assumes the HO-3 covers personal property on the same open-perils basis as the dwelling, or ignores the special dollar sublimits on Coverage C categories such as money, theft of jewelry, theft of silverware, and theft of firearms.
The HO-3 is nicknamed the 'special form,' and candidates apply that label to the entire policy; the Coverage C sublimits sit in small print inside the coverage rather than in the declarations.
What to do instead
State the coverage basis out loud for each form before answering: HO-3 = open perils on Coverages A and B but named perils on Coverage C; HO-5 = open perils on both; HO-2 = named perils on both; HO-4 = contents only. Memorize the Coverage C special-limit categories as a short list and remember they are per-loss sublimits that stack on top of, not replace, the deductible and the Coverage C limit.
Treats a newly acquired auto, a non-owned auto used in the insured's business, or a permissive user as automatically covered on the same terms as a listed auto, without checking the 'your covered auto' definition, the reporting conditions, or the relevant endorsement.
Personal auto is the one policy candidates have lived with, so answers come from everyday assumptions instead of the policy's defined terms and conditions.
What to do instead
Memorize the coverage parts in order (A liability, B medical payments, C uninsured/underinsured motorist, D damage to your auto) and drill three closed lists: what qualifies as 'your covered auto'; the newly acquired auto time frames and reporting condition; and who is an insured under Parts A and B. Also lock in that Part D carries the collision and other-than-collision deductibles while Part A has none, and that hitting an animal is other-than-collision, not collision.
Answers a commercial general liability item as though every policy is occurrence-based, or misapplies the 'your work' and 'your product' exclusions to damage to the insured's own completed work versus damage to someone else's property caused by it.
Occurrence wording dominates most study examples, and the business-risk exclusions all sound like the same exclusion unless the candidate reads what property was damaged and when the injury occurred.
What to do instead
For every CGL item, first ask two questions: when did the injury or damage occur versus when was the claim made (occurrence = injury date; claims-made = claim date plus retroactive date), and whose property was damaged (the insured's own work/product is excluded, resulting damage to other property generally is not). Write out the business-risk exclusions as a list - your product, your work, impaired property, recall, professional liability - with a one-line example for each.
Assumes a businessowners policy will cover any small business and any exposure, including workers' compensation, commercial auto liability, or professional liability, or assumes eligibility depends only on square footage.
The BOP is marketed as the small-business package, so it gets treated as a catch-all rather than as a product with eligibility rules and deliberate built-in gaps.
What to do instead
Memorize the eligibility filter: BOP eligibility turns on the class of business plus building and contents limit thresholds, with certain occupancies and larger risks pushed to a commercial package policy. Memorize the three built-in gaps cold: no workers' compensation, no commercial auto, no professional liability - each requires a separate policy or endorsement. When a stem mentions a delivery van, a tow truck, or employee injuries, eliminate the BOP and look for the separate coverage.
Confuses workers' compensation Part One with Part Two - picks a dollar limit for Part One, or expects Part Two to pay the statutory benefits described in the state act.
Both parts appear on the same declarations page and both respond to employee injuries, so candidates merge them into one coverage in their notes.
What to do instead
Lock in the contrast as a two-column table: Part One pays all benefits required by the workers' compensation statute with no dollar limit and bars the insurer from recovering those amounts from the employer; Part Two is employer's liability with stated limits (per accident, per employee, policy limit) for suits that fall outside the statutory system; Part Three is other-states coverage. Add the exclusive-remedy rule: for a covered injury the employee's remedy is the statutory benefit, not a tort suit against the employer.
Assumes a homeowners or commercial property policy covers flood, or treats flood coverage as starting immediately and sharing the property policy's limit.
Water damage from a burst pipe is covered, so candidates generalize from all water losses to flood; flood is a named exclusion paired with a separate program with its own rules.
What to do instead
Memorize the line: flood is excluded on every property policy and must be written through the NFIP or a private flood policy, with an NFIP waiting period of about 30 days after application except for lender-required closings, and with its own separate limits. Maintain a comparison table of the stand-alone and add-on options - flood, earthquake, difference in conditions, umbrella/excess - recording what each covers, whether it is primary or excess, and how a self-insured retention or drop-down feature works.