Insurance guides
Plain guides to 10 lines of insurance. Each one reads the published forms and law: what it covers, what it excludes, what actually goes wrong, what reduces it, and what an underwriter asks. Every statement cites a source you can open.
For a business
Commercial Auto Insurance
The coverage part that responds when a vehicle used in a business injures someone or damages their property. On the standard form it is built differently from every other commercial line: th…
Commercial General Liability (CGL)
Commercial general liability insurance pays sums a business becomes legally obligated to pay as damages for third-party bodily injury and property damage. Whether the insurer also carries a …
Commercial Property Insurance
Commercial property insurance pays for direct physical loss of or damage to a business's buildings and business personal property caused by a covered cause of loss. This page is general info…
Community association insurance (California)
The insurance program a California homeowners association buys for itself: property on the common area, general liability, crime and fidelity, and directors and officers cover for the volunt…
Surplus lines (California)
Not a line of insurance so much as a route to one. When no admitted California insurer will write a risk, a licensed surplus line broker may place it with a nonadmitted insurer instead . Wha…
Workers Compensation Insurance (California)
California employers are required by statute to secure the payment of workers compensation. Labor Code section 3700 provides that every employer except the state shall secure the payment of …
For a household
Homeowners insurance
Homeowners insurance is a package policy on a residence that combines property coverage on the dwelling, other structures, and personal property with loss of use, personal liability, and med…
Landlord / rental dwelling insurance
A landlord or rental dwelling policy insures a residence the owner rents to others rather than occupies. One national carrier's rental dwelling program is described as providing dwelling cov…
Personal auto insurance (California)
The policy that responds when a private passenger vehicle injures someone, damages property, or is itself damaged. In California more of this line is written by statute than by the form: the…
Residential earthquake insurance (California)
Residential earthquake insurance is bought separately from the homeowners policy, because CDI states that homeowners, renters, and condominium insurance policies do not cover damage from nat…
A guide is a reading, not a summary
Each guide is the same evidence as its reference page, arranged for someone meeting the line for the first time. Every section is deep-linkable, so a colleague or an answer engine can point at the exact part that matters rather than at the page.
None of them prices anything, decides eligibility, or states what your own policy covers. Where a statement depends on the form, the note says so, because that is where the answer actually lives.