General Insurance is also known as “non-life insurance” and includes car and household Insurance. It provides payments or reimbursements based on the loss that is a result of a particular financial occurrence. General Insurance will be made up of any types of insurance policies that are not life insurance policies. In Europe, it is known as non-life insurance, but in the USA, it is known as property and casual insurance. Sometimes, general insurance is further divided into categories: commercial lines, personal lines and, in the UK, London market, which insures larger commercial hazards like supermarkets and sport clubs.

What fall under the commercial lines category are products or services that are usually designed for fairly small legal bodies. Included are public liability, commercial fleet, product liability, employer’s liability, as well as other general insurance products that are typically sold to various companies. Many insurance companies offer services for shops, hotels and restaurants in the form of comprehensive business insurance.

Personal lines products are tailored to be sold in considerable amounts. This includes private automobile insurance, household insurance, creditor insurance, as well as things like pet insurance. The global insurance standards organization, ACORD, which takes responsibility for setting up and helping to maintain proper and ethical insurance regulations and laws, has standards for commercial and personal lines. They work with other bodies all over the world to create XML standards, standard applications for the insurance industry and even certificates of currency.

If you are looking into to insurance industry for work and career development, it is good to know about these different bodies and what they represent. It is also beneficial to know how to maintain their standards. However, if you are only looking to buy insurance, all you need to know is that general insurance does not include life insurance. This means that an insurance company cannot offer you life insurance under the general term and have to follow certain laws and regulations regarding general insurance when offering you any other insurance policies. Knowing the difference between commercial and personal lines will also help you determine what you need to buy if you are in possession of a company.