GA Property & Casualty common mistakes
GA Property & Casualty · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When a practice question asks how many continuing-education hours a Georgia producer must complete, the candidate answers from habit with 12, 16, or 36 hours and ignores the ethics requirement entirely.
Candidates memorize a generic 'CE every couple of years' number from a neighboring state or an older course and never anchor it to Georgia's own biennial requirement, so the ethics subset is invisible to them.
What to do instead
Build a one-page Georgia numbers card and recite it before every practice set: 24 CE credit hours per two-year license term, of which 3 hours must be ethics, plus the license term length, appointment rules, and the notice window for termination of appointment. Treat any CE question as a Georgia-only question.
States that a property policy requires insurable interest at the time the policy is written, then carries that same timing rule over to a life insurance question.
The principle gets flattened into one memorized sentence ('you need insurable interest'), so the candidate never separates the timing test for indemnity contracts from the timing test for valued contracts.
What to do instead
Drill the contrast as a two-column rule: property/casualty insurable interest must exist at the time of loss (and the insured must suffer actual financial loss), while life insurance insurable interest is tested at policy inception. Answer every insurable-interest question by first asking 'which line of business?'
Applies the coinsurance formula, gets a dollar figure, and stops - paying that figure even when it exceeds the policy limit or when the insured actually carried more than the required percentage.
The candidate memorized the (carried ÷ required) × loss fraction but never learned the surrounding decision logic, so the math is applied mechanically to every loss.
What to do instead
Use a fixed three-step routine on every coinsurance item: (1) compare limit carried to the required percentage of value - if the limit meets or exceeds it, pay the loss in full up to the limit; (2) only if underinsured, multiply the loss by carried ÷ required; (3) always cap the result at the policy limit. Write out all three steps even when step 2 is the only one scored.
On a Georgia negligence question, says that any degree of fault by the plaintiff bars recovery, or applies a pure comparative rule and lets a plaintiff who is 60 percent at fault collect 40 percent.
Contributory negligence, pure comparative negligence, and modified comparative negligence get blended into one fuzzy idea, and the candidate does not know which rule Georgia actually uses.
What to do instead
Memorize one Georgia sentence and apply it verbatim: Georgia follows modified comparative fault with a 50 percent bar - a claimant 50 percent or more at fault recovers nothing, and a claimant less than 50 percent at fault has damages reduced by their own percentage. Practice with fault splits at 49, 50, and 51 percent until the boundary is automatic.
Insures a tenant-occupied house or a short-term rental on a homeowners form because the building 'looks like a house,' then is surprised that the loss is not covered.
Candidates map the shape of the risk (a dwelling) to the product name (homeowners) instead of checking the owner-occupancy eligibility condition.
What to do instead
Adopt an eligibility gate before selecting any form: homeowners requires the named insured to occupy the dwelling as a residence; a rented, secondary, or seasonal dwelling goes on a dwelling policy. For each practice scenario, write the occupancy status in the margin first, then choose the form.
Expects Medical Payments to Others to pay for the named insured's own injury, or for an injury to a regular resident relative, and also assumes the insured must have been negligent before it pays.
The coverage is mentally filed under 'liability,' so the candidate imports both the negligence trigger and the wrong pool of eligible claimants.
What to do instead
Fix the three defining features in memory: no fault required, modest limit, and it pays 'others' only - the named insured and regular residents of the household are excluded. Then place the injury: a visiting neighbor's child injured on the premises is a classic pay; the insured slipping in their own kitchen is not.
Assumes the personal auto policy still responds while the insured is logged into a rideshare app, or while using the vehicle to deliver goods or food for pay.
Candidates treat 'personal use' as a description of the driver's intent rather than a policy eligibility line, and they have not seen the livery/public conveyance and delivery-for-a-fee exclusions framed as business-use bars.
What to do instead
Build a public-versus-livery decision list and run every fact pattern through it: carrying persons or property for a fee, or holding out to the public, is excluded on the PAP; the fix is a commercial auto policy or a rideshare endorsement. Note the point at which coverage drops (app on, passenger accepted) because questions turn on those moments.
Treats the Causes of Loss – Special Form as 'Broad plus a few extra perils' and then hunts through a named-peril list looking for the trigger that covers the loss.
Years of personal-lines named-peril habits carry over, and the candidate never registers that the Special form reverses the logic of the coverage grant rather than extending it.
What to do instead
Say the rule out loud before answering any commercial cause-of-loss item: Special Form covers risk of direct physical loss unless the cause is excluded, so the analysis starts with the exclusions, not a peril list. Sort each scenario into 'find the peril' (Basic/Broad) versus 'find the exclusion' (Special) before choosing.
Describes workers compensation as a medical-only benefit, or says the injured worker can still sue the employer in tort for the same injury.
The candidate reduces the line to 'it pays the hospital bill' and misses both the exclusive remedy doctrine and the indemnity benefit structure; Georgia's small-employer coverage threshold is also usually unknown.
What to do instead
Learn four benefit buckets and one doctrine: medical, indemnity (TTD, TPD, PPD, PTD, death), rehabilitation, and exclusive remedy. Add the Georgia trigger: employers with three or more employees regularly employed must carry coverage, and sole proprietors and partners are excluded unless they elect in. Answer any 'can the employee sue?' item with the exclusive remedy rule first.
Assumes the businessowners policy automatically includes commercial auto liability, professional liability, or workers compensation because it is sold as 'a package for small business.'
The word package suggests completeness, and candidates have not separated what the BOP actually bundles (property, general liability, business income) from what is handled by a separate policy or endorsement.
What to do instead
Draw the BOP as a two-lane box: inside the box go property, general liability, and business income with its own limit; outside the box list commercial auto, workers compensation, professional/E&O, and employment practices, each with 'separate policy or endorsement' written next to it. Run every 'does the BOP cover X?' item through the two lanes.