WA Property & Casualty cheat sheet

Washington producer licensing requires age 18 or older, OIC-approved prelicensing education for the line, a passing exam score, fingerprint-based background check, and payment of license fees.

Producers complete 24 continuing-education credit hours every two years, including at least 3 hours of ethics; completion records must be retained and are subject to audit.

Insurers file producer appointments and terminations with the Washington OIC; a producer's authority to bind or solicit for an insurer depends on a valid appointment.

Premiums collected for an insurer are trust funds: producers must keep them separate from personal or general business funds, avoid commingling, and remit promptly.

Washington unfair-claim-practice rules require prompt acknowledgment, reasonable investigation, timely communication, and a written explanation when a claim is denied or disputed.

For most property-casualty policies, cancellation or nonrenewal requires at least 20 days' written notice; nonpayment of premium requires at least 10 days' notice.

Personal auto policies cannot generally be cancelled midterm after 60 days except for specified reasons such as nonpayment, fraud, license suspension, or material misrepresentation.

Washington minimum auto liability is $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident bodily injury plus $10,000 per accident property damage; PIP must be offered and can be waived in writing.

Washington is a monopolistic workers' compensation state: most employers use the Department of Labor & Industries State Fund or self-insure; private workers' compensation insurance is generally unavailable.

Risk is uncertainty about loss; insurance transfers pure risk (loss or no loss), while speculative risk (loss or gain) is generally uninsurable.

Insurable interest in property-casualty insurance must exist at the time of loss and is measured by the insured's financial loss from damage or liability.

Indemnity limits recovery to the pre-loss financial position; ACV, replacement cost, policy limits, and deductibles are tools that apply indemnity.

Insurance policies are contracts of utmost good faith, aleatory, unilateral, conditional, and contracts of adhesion; ambiguities are generally construed against the drafter.

A peril is the cause of loss; a hazard increases the chance or severity of loss and may be physical, moral, or morale.

The law of large numbers supports pooling and rate stability: a larger number of similar independent exposure units makes actual losses more predictable.

Risk management options are avoidance, retention, reduction, and transfer; insurance is a transfer technique.

Negligence requires duty, breach, proximate cause, and damages; Washington uses pure comparative negligence, reducing recovery by the plaintiff's fault percentage.

Commercial property coinsurance formula: payment = loss × (insurance carried ÷ insurance required), capped at the policy limit; required = coinsurance % × property value.

A property policy is organized into declarations, insuring agreement, conditions, exclusions, and definitions; the declarations set limits, deductible, insured, and property location.

ACV = replacement cost − depreciation; replacement cost pays new-for-old without depreciation, subject to limits and repair/replace conditions.

Coinsurance applies in commercial property when the insured carries less than the required percentage of value; the penalty reduces the claim payment proportionally.

Other insurance clauses typically use pro rata sharing for same-level coverage; subrogation and salvage help the insurer recover loss costs.

HO-3 covers the dwelling and other structures on an open-peril basis and personal property on a named-peril basis; Coverage B is typically 10% of Coverage A, Coverage C often 50%, Coverage D often 30%.

Standard homeowners exclusions include earth movement, flood, ordinance or law, neglect, intentional loss, and nuclear hazards; flood and earthquake require separate coverage.

A mortgagee clause protects the lender by paying its interest in a loss and providing notice of cancellation or nonrenewal.

Commercial property causes-of-loss forms are basic, broad, and special; special is open peril with exclusions rather than a named-peril list.

NFIP flood policies generally impose a 30-day waiting period; flood is excluded by standard property forms.

Liability insurance responds to legal liability for injury or damage to others; it does not pay the insured's own injury or property damage except under specific coverages like medical payments.

Negligence elements are duty, breach, proximate cause, and damages; Washington applies pure comparative negligence, and the statute of limitations for injury or property damage is generally three years.

CGL Coverage A covers bodily injury and property damage; Coverage B covers personal and advertising injury; Coverage C provides limited medical payments regardless of fault.

Occurrence policies respond to injury or damage occurring during the policy period; claims-made policies respond to claims first made during the policy period, subject to the retroactive date.

CGL limits include each occurrence, general aggregate, products-completed operations aggregate, damage to premises rented, and medical expense; the general aggregate is usually restored by endorsement only.

Additional insured endorsements extend liability coverage to another party; certificates of insurance evidence coverage but do not create or amend coverage.

Umbrella liability covers over underlying limits and may fill gaps; excess liability follows specified underlying policies and usually does not drop down.

Workers compensation provides no-fault medical and wage-loss benefits and is generally the employee's exclusive remedy against the employer; employer's liability covers certain third-party claims.

Commercial auto coverage uses symbols to identify covered autos; hired auto and nonowned auto liability extend to vehicles used in the business but not owned by it.

HO-3 is for owner-occupied dwellings; HO-4 covers tenants' personal property and liability; HO-6 covers condo unit owners; HO-8 modifies coverage for older or higher-risk homes.

Personal auto policy Parts: A liability, B medical payments or PIP, C uninsured/underinsured motorists, D collision and other-than-collision damage to the insured auto.

Washington requires auto liability minimums and requires insurers to offer PIP and UM/UIM; the insured may reject UM/UIM in writing, and PIP may be waived in writing.

A personal umbrella requires underlying homeowners and auto limits and responds after those limits are exhausted; it may also cover personal injury and libel/slander.

A businessowners policy (BOP) packages property, general liability, and business income for eligible small businesses; eligibility is limited by size, occupancy, and business type.

Business income pays net income and continuing expenses during the period of restoration; extra expense pays costs to avoid or minimize shutdown.

Inland marine covers property in transit, mobile equipment, tools, and bailee exposures that are not well suited to standard property forms.

Crime coverage includes employee dishonesty, forgery or alteration, computer fraud, and theft; limits are usually per loss and may be shared or separate by coverage.