UNDERSTANDING INSURANCE - RIDERS AND WAIVERS

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This page contains dozens of short articles that will help you quickly understand international insurance. For example, terminology, purchasing details and managing your insurance coverage are topics that are all covered within these articles. Choose an Article From the Topics Below

WHAT'S A “RIDER”? WHAT'S A “WAIVER”?

These are terms insurance companies use to explain special exceptions to coverage in their insurance plans. For example, you may have injured your knee playing tennis and needed some minor surgery. Six months later you applied for insurance. On the application you mentioned your knee surgery. The underwriters at the insurance company decided that since the surgery was recent there was a notable risk of recurrence. Otherwise you were healthy, and they wanted to offer insurance, but they felt they could possibly lose money due to your knee problem. What do they do? They put a “rider” (“waiver”) on the knee, which simply means they will insure you but waive covering anything that happens to the knee. In other words they will insure your whole body except your knee. They will exclude covering anything that happens to the knee.

Sometimes these “riders/waivers” are permanent. Other times the company will issue a two-year, three-year or five-year rider. If the condition does not deteriorate or recur over a period of time, often they will “lift” the rider and give you full coverage. The option of using “riders” is good for the insurance companies and for the general public because it enables the companies to insure people whom they would otherwise decline to cover.

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