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 Insurance
Definitions
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- Damage to Property of Others: Damage
covered up to $500 per occurrence for an insured
who damages another's property. Payment is made
despite the lack of any legal liability.
- Death Benefit: A payment made to a
designated beneficiary upon the death of the
employee annuitant.
- Declarations: Statements in an
insurance contract that provide information
about the property or life to be insured and
used for underwriting and rating purposes and
identification of the property or life to be
insured.
- Declination: The insurer's refusal to
insure an individual after careful evaluation of
the application for insurance and any other
pertinent factors.
- Deductible: An amount which a
policyholder agrees to pay, per claim or per
accident, toward the total amount of an insured
loss.
- Deferred Annuity: An annuity
providing for the income payments to begin at
some specified future date.
- Deferred Compensation: Arrangements
by which compensation to employees for past or
current services is postponed until some future
date.
- Dental Insurance: Individual or group
plan that helps pay costs of normal dental care
as well as damage to teeth from an accident.
- Dependency Period: Period of time
following the readjustment period during which
the surviving spouse's children are under
eighteen and therefore dependent of the parent.
- Dependent Benefits: Social Security
benefits available to the spouse or children of
a Social Security beneficiary.
- Deposit Premium: The premium deposit
paid by a prospective policy holder when an
application is made for an insurance policy. The
actual premium when billed.
- Depreciation: A decrease in the value
of property over a period of time due to wear
and tear or obsolescence. Depreciation is used
to determine the actual cash value of property
at time of loss.
- Diagnosis-Related Groups (DRGs):
System that reimburses health cared providers
fixed amounts for all care given in connection
with standard diagnostic categories.
- Difference in Conditions Insurance (DIC):
"All-risks" policy that covers other perils not
insured by basic property insurance contracts,
supplemental to and excluding the coverage
provided by underlying contracts.
- Direct Loss: Financial loss that
results directly from an insured peril.
- Direct Premiums Written: Property and
casualty insurance premiums written (less return
premiums), without any allowance for premiums
for assumed or ceded reinsurance.
- Direct Response System: A marketing
method where insurance is sold without the
services of an agent. Potential customers are
solicited by advertising in the mail,
newspapers, magazines, television, radio, and
other media.
- Direct Writer: The industry term for
a company which uses its own sales employees to
write its policies.
- Directors' and Officers' Liability:
The exposure of corporate managers to claims
from shareholders, government agencies, and
employees, and others alleging mismanagement.
- Disability: A physical or a mental
impairment that substantially limits one or more
major life activities of an individual. It may
be partial or total.
- Disability Benefit: A feature added
to some life insurance policies providing for
waiver of premium, and sometimes payment of
monthly income, if the policy holder becomes
totally and permanently disabled.
- Disability Income Insurance: A form
of health insurance that provides periodic
payments to replace income when an insured
person is unable to work as a result of illness,
injury, or disease.
- Dismemberment: Loss of body members
(limbs), or use thereof, or loss of sight due to
injury.
- Dismemberment Insurance: A form of
health insurance that provides payment in case
of loss by bodily injury of one or more body
members (such as hands or feet) or the sight of
one or both eyes.
- Disposable Personal Income: The
personal income less personal tax and non-tax
payments. It is the income available to people
for spending and saving.
- Dividend: A return of part of the
premium on participating insurance to reflect
the difference between the premium charged and
the combination of actual mortality, expense and
investment experience.
- Dividend: Portion of the premium
which is returned to the insured because of
favorable experience by the company.
- Dividend: A policy holder's share in
the insurer's divisible surplus fund apportioned
for distribution, which may take the form of a
refund of part of the premium on a participating
policy. The term is also used for a
stockholder's share of the portion of a
corporation's earnings that is distributed in
cash or additional stock.
- Dividend Addition: An amount of
paid-up insurance purchased with a policy
dividend and added to the face amount of the
policy.
- Dollar Threshold: In no-fault auto
insurance states with the dollar threshold, it
prevents individuals from suing in tort to
recover for pain and suffering unless their
medical expenses exceed a certain dollar amount.
- Domestic Insurer: An insurance
company is a domestic company in the state in
which it is incorporated.
- Donor: The person making a gift.
- Double Indemnity: A policy provision
usually associated with death, which doubles
payment of a designated benefit when certain
kinds of accidents occur.
- Dramshop Law: Law that imputes
negligence to the owner of a business that sells
liquor in the case that an intoxicated customer
causes injury or property damage to another
person. Usually excluded from general liability
policies.
- Driver Education Credit: Student
discount or reduction in premium amount for
which young drivers become eligible on
completion of a driver education course.
- Duplication of Benefits: Overlapping
or identical coverage of the same, insured under
two or more health plans, usually the result of
contracts of different insurance companies,
service organizations, or pre-payment plans;
also known as multiple coverage.
- Dwelling Property 1: Property
insurance policy that insures the dwelling at
actual cash value, other structures, personal
property, fair rental value, and certain other
coverage's. Covers a limited number of perils.
- Dwelling Property 2: Property
insurance policy that insures the dwelling and
other structures at replacement cost. It adds
additional coverage's and has a greater list of
covered perils than the Dwelling Property 1
policy.
- Dwelling Property 3: Property
insurance policy that covers the dwelling and
other structures against direct physical loss
from any peril except for those perils otherwise
excluded. However, personal property is covered
on a named-perils basis.
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