Personal Lines Insurance and Dwelling Exterior Inspection

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering underwriting factors, insurance policies, architectural styles, roof designs, construction classes, and exterior hazard inspections for personal lines dwellings.

Personal Lines Insurance

Insurance products that protect individuals and families against financial losses caused by perils such as fire, theft, accidents, and natural calamities, as well as sickness and death.

Homeowners Policy

A package policy that includes both property coverage and casualty (liability) coverage in the same contract to protect policyholders from losses associated with owning or renting a home.

Peril

An event that directly causes damage to property, such as fire, high winds, or roof leaks.

Loss of Use

Homeowners coverage that pays for temporary housing and additional living expenses, such as meals above normal expenditures, while a damaged, uninhabitable home is repaired.

Homeowners Special Form (HO-3)

A popular homeowners policy providing broad coverage for the dwelling and other structures on an "open perils" basis, while personal property (contents) is covered only against specifically named perils.

Condominium Insurance (HO-6)

Insurance policy designed for condominium owners covering personal property, personal liability, and certain building losses or interior alterations not covered by the condo association's master policy.

Mobile Home

Any living structure designed for transport with its own wheels (either affixed or removed) that features a metal center support structure and is typically skirted at its base after set-up.

Insulbrick

A replacement siding consisting of fibreboard sheathing and asbestos material stamped with a brick pattern, popular until the late 1950s and frequently associated with carpenter ant infestations underneath.

Knob and Tube Wiring

An obsolete pre-1940 residential electrical system identified by black fabric-covered wiring suspended by white porcelain insulators, which lacks an equipment grounding conductor.

Branch Aluminum Wiring

Electrical wiring installed frequently in homes built during the mid-1960s into the 1970s that presents an elevated fire hazard if left unmitigated.

Galvanized Piping

Water supply and distribution piping used extensively through the 1950s with an expected lifespan of $40\text{--}50\text{ years}$, which becomes prone to joint leaks, interior rust, and sediment buildup.

Home Fire Sprinkler System

A fire protection installation that reduces fire-related structural damage by $70\%$ or more compared to non-sprinklered homes, while using less than $10\%$ of the water required by fire suppression services.

Cold Weather Seasonal Occupancy Requirement

The requirement that unoccupied dwellings during freezing winter periods be heated to at least $40\text{ degrees}$ or have their plumbing lines drained to prevent burst pipes and water damage.

Sinkhole

A naturally occurring geologic cavity or void formed when circulating groundwater dissolves subsurface limestone or carbonate rock, causing surface sediment to collapse inward.

Moral Hazard

An insurance condition wherein an insured deliberately causes or amplifies a loss to manage personal financial difficulties or realize a profit from insurance proceeds.

Morale Hazard

A condition in which an insured's attitude or behavioral indifference toward maintaining and protecting insured property increases the likelihood or severity of a claim.

Frame Construction (ISO I, IBC V)

A construction classification characterized by load-bearing exterior walls, structural framing, floors, and roofs made of wood or other combustible materials, regardless of exterior veneer cladding.

Clapboard Siding

Natural wood siding beveled on the exposed edge and applied horizontally so that each board overlaps the board below it, commonly called lap or beveled siding.

Joisted Masonry Construction (ISO II, IBC III & IV)

A construction type where exterior load-bearing walls are built of masonry materials (such as adobe, true brick, or stone), while internal joists, floors, and roofs are combustible.

True Brick

Structural brick wall construction consisting of a double row of bricks interlocked across directions, displaying both long ("stretcher") faces and end ("header") faces on the wall exterior.

Brick Veneer

A non-structural exterior cladding composed of a single course of bricks where all visible units show only the long ("stretcher") edge, installed over a wood or combustible structural frame.

Exterior Insulation & Finish System (EIFS)

A synthetic exterior stucco cladding system applied over rigid insulation foam board mechanically or adhesively fastened to structural sheathing.

Face-sealed EIFS Assembly

A total barrier EIFS stucco system that relies entirely on caulk and sealants at joints and penetrations to prevent water penetration, making it vulnerable to trapped water, rot, and mold upon seal failure.

Drainable EIFS Assembly

An improved EIFS assembly incorporating dedicated internal drainage channels and bottom metal weep screeds with weep holes to evacuate intruding moisture away from the wall substrate.

Shotgun House

A long, narrow single-story residential building design, typically one room wide, featuring a full front porch and doorways aligned from front to back.

Ranch Style Dwelling

A low-profile, single-story home popularized in the 1950s, typically $900\text{--}1{,}500\text{ square feet}$ with an average of $1{,}200\text{ square feet}$, featuring pitched gable roofs, picture windows, and an attached garage.

Split Level Dwelling

A multi-level home design developed as an alternative to the single-story ranch, characterized by short interior flights of stairs connecting living areas, bedrooms, and a basement or garage level.

Dutch Colonial

A colonial architectural variant marked by a distinctive gambrel roof with two slopes on each side, frequently accommodating projecting dormer windows.

Arts & Crafts Style (Craftsman)

A residential architectural style emerging in the 1870s featuring low-pitched roofs with wide eaves, double-hung windows, and large front porches supported by tapered, square columns.

Saltbox

A historic residential style dating to colonial times with a steeply pitched asymmetrical gable roof, spanning two and a half stories in the front and sloping down to one story at the rear.

Tudor Style

A European-inspired residential building style popular in the early 20th century, defined by steeply pitched cross-gable roofs and exposed decorative timber framing on upper stories.

Victorian Architecture

A multi-story architectural style dating from the mid-1800s to early 1900s, characterized by ornate ornamentation, steep cross-gable roofs, curved corner towers, fish-scale shingles, and spindle-work porches.

Gable Roof

A simple roof design consisting of two sloping sides that meet at a single central ridge, creating a triangular wall profile at each gable end.

Hip Roof

A stable roof design featuring inward slopes on all four sides of equal length meeting at a central ridge, offering high wind and snow resistance along with deep perimeter eaves.

Gambrel Roof

A traditional barn-style roof design featuring two distinct slopes on each side, where the lower pitch is significantly steeper than the upper pitch to maximize upper-level living space.

Mansard Roof

A hipped roof design featuring two slopes on every side with the lower slope being nearly vertical and usually fitted with dormers, popular during the 1860s and 1870s.

Shed Roof

A single-plane roof design defined by a low slope of less than $15\text{ degrees}$, commonly found on sheds, porches, and home additions.

Firewall

A non-combustible or masonry wall with a 3-hour fire-resistance rating that penetrates and extends above the roofline to prevent horizontal fire spread between attached townhouses.

Re-pointing

The maintenance process of raking out loose, weathered, or deteriorated mortar from masonry and chimney joints and replacing it with fresh mortar.

Architectural Asphalt Shingles

Multi-layered, textured asphalt shingles with tabs of varying sizes and shapes, providing superior wind-uplift resistance and an expected lifespan of $25\text{--}30\text{ years}$.

3-Tab Asphalt Shingles

Flat, single-layer roofing shingles manufactured with uniform tab dimensions, serving as an economical covering with an expected service life of $5\text{--}20\text{ years}$.

Roof Valley

The internal V-shaped junction formed where two intersecting roof slopes meet, which is particularly prone to snow accumulation, ice dams, and water leaks if improperly flashed.

Fascia

The flat, vertical finish boards fastened across the ends of horizontal roof rafters, often supporting gutters.

Soffit

The horizontal exterior underside enclosing the overhang between the outer dwelling wall and the roof fascia boards.

Frost Line

The maximum anticipated depth of ground freezing (reaching $4\text{ feet}$ or more in cold climates) below which structural deck and porch support piers must be placed to avoid frost upheaval.

Stairway Riser Standards (NFPA 101)

Life safety code requirements mandating that step riser heights in one- and two-family homes measure between $4\text{ inches}$ and $7\frac{3}{4}\text{ inches}$ and maintain uniform height throughout the flight.

Baluster

A vertical infill post supporting a guardrail or handrail, required by life safety codes to be spaced less than $4\text{ inches}$ apart to prevent child fall injuries and head entrapment.

Abandoned Oil Fill Pipe

An exterior fuel connection left in place after an indoor oil storage tank is removed or disconnected, creating a serious contamination hazard if oil is mistakenly pumped into the basement floor.