Glossary

Total insurable value is a property insurance term referring to the sum of the full value of the insured's covered property, business income values, and any other covered property interests.

The total insured value provision in reinsurance agreements excludes coverage of individual properties in cases where total insured values across all property lines equal or exceed a certain level.

A total loss, in an insurance context, is a claim determination that property, typically a vehicle, is so badly damaged, destroyed, stolen, or otherwise unrecoverable that it is not economically practical to repair or replace under the policy. An insurer may declare a total loss when the estimated repair cost, sometimes considering salvage value or other claim-related costs, meets or exceeds the property's actual cash value or a policy or state-law threshold. When a covered item is determined to be a total loss, the insurer generally settles the claim based on the applicable valuation provision, such as actual cash value, agreed value, stated value, or replacement cost. Such settlement is subject to deductibles, limits, exclusions, and any salvage rights.

A total pollution exclusion eliminates virtually all coverage for pollution incidents, including those retained in the standard commercial general liability (CGL) policy despite its "absolute" pollution exclusion. The three Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO), total pollution exclusion endorsements (CG 21 49, CG 21 55, and CG 21 65) remove coverage for bodily injury (BI) or property damage that "would not have occurred in whole or part but for" a pollution incident. The second of these endorsements, CG 21 55, includes a specific exception for damages caused by smoke, heat, or fumes from a hostile fire. The third, CG 21 65, makes exceptions both for hostile fire and for BI caused by fumes from faulty building heating equipment. Insureds should attempt to avoid any of these endorsements and should negotiate for CG 21 65 if the insurer insists on adding one of them.

Towing operations are attending, servicing, or repairing a customer's auto at the location where it becomes disabled, including transporting the auto from that location to the repair garage. This policy definition was introduced in the Insurance Services Office, Inc. (ISO), commercial auto program, effective December 1, 2020.

A townhome, also referred to as a townhouse, is a dwelling unit that is usually attached to one or more neighboring units, connected by shared walls. Unlike a condominium arrangement, a townhome owner may own the dwelling structure and the land beneath it. The appropriate insurance coverage depends on who is responsible for insuring the full structure or the interior of the unit. Coverage may be provided by the homeowners association master policy for common areas, shared elements, exterior building components, or liability exposures.

The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 [15 U.S.C. §2601 et seq.] was enacted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to regulate the importation, production, use in commerce, and disposal of specified chemicals with the intent to ensure the safe use of such chemicals within American workplaces and in commerce. The Act provides the EPA with the authority to require reporting, recordkeeping, and testing relating to chemical substances and/or mixtures.

Toxic tort is an action based on allegations that injuries or death were caused by contact with, use of, or ingestion of an insidious or poisonous substance, such as asbestos, polychlorinated biphenyls, or insecticides.

Tradable risk is the wide array of risks that share one fundamental characteristic—transparency. Transparency is the term of art used to describe the degree to which the majority of market participants can readily understand the relative value of a financial transaction. For example, public companies' equity, whether traded on an exchange or over-the-counter, is extremely transparent; the company must report significant financial data to the Securities and Exchange Commission, and those data are readily available to any investor. Barring corporate malfeasance, all of the risks associated with any publicly traded equity may be known and therefore factored into the share price. All of these risks (there are way too many to list) are considered tradable risks because they are understood and priced by the market participants.

Trade disruption insurance is a political risk insurance (PRI) that covers loss of gross earnings and extra expenses caused by a delay or nonarrival of supplies or stocks arising from foreign government actions or inaction. Such losses can arise from embargoes, expropriation, nationalization, interference with transportation, and similar actions. It is the most commonly written form of PRI and responds to changes in trade regulations or disruptions in trade conditions to either ensure that contracted goods are successfully shipped and paid for or that any resulting losses are compensated. Trade disruption insurance is generally written for short periods of time, from a few days to 2 years. Given the vast volume of world trade, trade insurance also accounts for the substantial majority of a PRI premium.