Common Personal Insurance Terms

Insurance can be so … well … Insurancy sometimes!

Here’s a quick review of some common personal insurance terms that can help you understand your policies a little better. And don’t hesitate to give us a shout if we can help define even further.

Bodily Injury (BI) — liability insurance term that includes bodily harm, sickness, or disease, including resulting death.

Medical Payments, General Liability — a general liability coverage that reimburses others, without regard to the insured’s liability, for medical or funeral expenses incurred by such persons as a result of bodily injury (BI) or death sustained by accident under the conditions specified in the policy.

Personal Liability Coverage — liability coverage provided by the homeowners policy that protects the insured against the financial consequences of liability to others for bodily injury (BI) and property damage (PD). This coverage also insures the cost of defense in addition to the policy limit.

Personal Umbrella Policy — provides high limits of liability to protect an insured against a catastrophic liability loss. This policy grants liability coverage that stacks on top of the primary liability coverage provided by the insured’s homeowners, personal auto, watercraft, and any other scheduled underlying liability policies. It covers bodily injury (BI), property damage (PD), and personal injury (PI), which includes offenses such as libel, slander, false arrest, invasion of privacy, and others. The umbrella policy also fills some gaps in coverage over a specified deductible (often called a retained limit) in the underlying policy.

Property Damage (PD) — as defined in the general liability policy, physical injury to tangible property including resulting loss of use and loss of use of tangible property that has not been physically injured. Also addressed in the homeowners and personal auto policies.

Optional Bodily Injury (OBI) (MA) – Additional coverage for bodily injury to others, raising the limit for all those hurt in the accident, providing bodily injury coverage for passengers in your car, and covering you if the accident occurs outside Massachusetts.