III IC-72 common mistakes
III IC-72 · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering general insurance questions with life-insurance logic, e.g. treating indemnity and insurable interest in a fire or marine claim the way they are treated in a life policy.
Most candidates come from a life or agency background and study IC-72 as a single 'insurance' subject, so they default to familiar life-assurance principles instead of the general-insurance principles the paper tests.
What to do instead
Build a one-page contrast table for each principle (indemnity, insurable interest, subrogation, contribution, proximate cause) with a life column and a general-insurance column, and before answering any scenario question decide which branch of insurance applies.
Reciting a definition of a principle but failing to apply it to the facts given, e.g. naming 'proximate cause' without identifying which event is proximate in the scenario.
Candidates memorise textbook definitions because they are easy to revise, but the paper rewards application, and under time pressure they write the definition as a substitute for analysis.
What to do instead
Practise a fixed three-step answer structure: state the principle in one line, identify the decisive fact in the scenario, then state the conclusion. Do ten timed scenario questions using only that structure.
Confusing the roles and liabilities of the insurer, insured, broker and agent when a question describes a distribution or claims situation.
The functions overlap in practice and candidates learn them from marketing material rather than from the regulatory framework, so they attribute duties to the wrong party.
What to do instead
Draw a responsibility matrix listing each party against duties (disclosure, premium collection, claim intimation, settlement, record keeping) and revise it until you can place any duty in the correct column without notes.
Treating 'utmost good faith' as a one-way duty on the proposer and ignoring the insurer's own disclosure obligations.
Older study notes and agency training emphasise the proposer's duty to disclose, so candidates miss the reciprocal element that examiners increasingly test.
What to do instead
Learn the duty as reciprocal with two named obligations on each side, and add one example of insurer-side breach (for example non-disclosure of a policy term that materially affects cover) to your notes.
Calculating a claim settlement without first applying the sum insured, average or underinsurance condition, so the arithmetic is right but the method is wrong.
Candidates jump to the arithmetic because numbers feel concrete, and skip the policy-condition step that determines whether averaging applies at all.
What to do instead
Adopt a checklist order: establish the loss, check the basis of settlement, check underinsurance or average, apply deductible or excess, then compute. Work five numerical problems strictly in that order.
Mixing up depreciation, salvage and excess when arriving at the amount payable on a property claim.
These three adjustments all reduce the payout, so under exam pressure candidates apply them in the wrong sequence or double-count one of them.
What to do instead
Write out a single worked example showing all three deductions separately, then redo it with one deduction removed, so you can see exactly what each adjustment does to the final figure.
Quoting a regulatory or statutory provision from memory without being able to state what it requires in practice.
Candidates memorise section numbers as a shortcut to looking prepared, but examiners ask what the provision does, not only where it sits.
What to do instead
For each provision you memorise, write one sentence on the obligation it creates and one on the consequence of breach. If you cannot write both, drop the section number and learn the requirement instead.
Ignoring the policy conditions and exclusions when answering a liability or claim question, and answering only from the cover clause.
The cover clause is the memorable part of a policy, while conditions and exclusions are read passively, so they are not retrieved when a scenario turns on them.
What to do instead
For every policy you revise, list exclusions and conditions before the cover clause, and answer at least one past-style question where the correct outcome is 'not covered' because of a condition.
Spending equal time on all questions instead of securing the marks on the shorter, definitional parts first.
Candidates treat every question as equally weighted and get drawn into long scenario answers early, leaving insufficient time for the rest of the paper.
What to do instead
In the first five minutes, mark each question as quick, medium or long, answer all quick ones first, then allocate remaining time by mark value. Rehearse this in two full timed mock papers.
Writing long narrative answers with no structure, so the examiner cannot locate the point being made.
Candidates equate length with depth and write continuously under time pressure, which buries the key term the marker is looking for.
What to do instead
Use headings, numbered points and a one-line conclusion per answer, and put the technical term in the first sentence. Practise rewriting three of your own long answers into structured bullet form.