Louisiana Insurance Adjuster Course Notes

Highest-weight domain. Know Louisiana claims-adjuster licensing, license maintenance, discipline, standards of conduct, and claim-settlement timing. Current law matters: the statutory claims-adjuster lines are Property and Casualty, Workers’ Compensation, Crop, and limited lines—not separate Property/Auto/Personal/Commercial adjuster licenses.

• Treating Property, Casualty, Auto, Personal Lines, and Commercial Lines as separate current Louisiana claims-adjuster license lines.

• On regulation questions, identify the actor, license status, line/limited authority, deadline trigger, and exact prohibited act.

The adjuster’s job is a documented decision process: receive notice, establish the file, investigate facts, review policy/coverage, assess liability and damages, value the loss, communicate, resolve disputes appropriately, settle or deny with support, preserve recovery rights, and close the file.

• Equating appraisal with a coverage ruling.

• Ask: What is disputed—coverage, liability, amount, or recovery?

Know the vocabulary and mechanics that every policy question builds on: risk, hazard, peril, direct/indirect loss, insurable interest, liability/negligence, valuation, limits, deductibles, coinsurance, other insurance, policy structure, duties after loss, subrogation, mortgage/loss-payee provisions, and Louisiana valued/fire-policy rules.

• Calling a hazard the cause of loss.

• Translate each scenario into: interest -> peril/cause -> coverage grant -> exclusion -> condition -> valuation -> deductible -> limit.

Know the homeowners forms named on the Series 204 outline, property and liability coverages, peril approach, core exclusions/conditions, and the listed endorsements. Coverage analysis always starts with the exact form and attached endorsements.

• Assuming homeowners automatically includes flood.

• Form first, coverage part second, cause/exclusion third, settlement fourth.

CGL is liability insurance—not a bundle of property, inland marine, and auto coverages. Know Coverage A bodily injury/property damage, Coverage B personal and advertising injury, Coverage C medical payments, supplementary payments, insured status, exclusions/conditions, occurrence vs claims-made timing, and premises/operations, products/completed operations, and contractual-liability exposures.

• Calling property/inland marine separate 'CGL coverage parts.'

• Classify the claim: who was injured, whose property was damaged, what operation/product caused it, when did injury occur, when was claim made/reported?

The exam tests basic contract formation and the characteristics/interpretation of insurance contracts. Know offer, acceptance, consideration, competent parties, legal purpose, adhesion, aleatory, personal, unilateral, conditional, reasonable expectations, indemnity, good faith, fraud, warranty/representation/misrepresentation/concealment, waiver, and estoppel.

• Calling every inaccurate statement fraud.

• Ask what the facts emphasize: formation, contract characteristic, disclosure, or post-loss conduct.

Know DP-1 Basic, DP-2 Broad, and DP-3 Special, dwelling-form eligibility/purpose, property coverages, exclusions/conditions, and the listed endorsements. Do not collapse dwelling and homeowners forms into a single rule set.

• Saying all dwelling forms cover only the structure.

• DP form -> property category -> peril -> exclusion -> condition -> endorsement -> valuation.

Commercial property is first-party property/time-element coverage. Know CPP structure, Building and Business Personal Property, Builders Risk, Business Income, Extra Expense, Legal Liability, Causes of Loss, key endorsements, inland marine, equipment breakdown, and farm property. Keep these separate from CGL liability.

• Using CGL for first-party building damage.

• Identify the damaged interest before the peril: building, BPP, construction project, time element, mobile property, machinery, farm property.

Know PAP definitions/general provisions/conditions, duties after an accident, Louisiana and standard endorsements named on the outline, liability, medical payments, UM/UIM, and physical damage. Keep first-party vehicle damage, liability to others, medical payments, and UM/UIM separate.

• Using medical payments to pay third-party property damage.

• Ask four questions: Who is claiming? Whose vehicle/property was damaged? Who is legally responsible? Which PAP coverage part answers that loss?

Commercial auto centers on business auto definitions, covered-auto scope/symbols, liability, physical damage, conditions/duties, endorsements, and specialized Motor Carrier and Auto Dealers forms. It is separate from PAP and CGL.

• Assuming every company-owned auto has every coverage.

• Vehicle status first, coverage symbol second, insured/ liability third, physical damage fourth, conditions/endorsements last.

This 3% domain is small but broad. Recognize umbrella, BOP, farmowners/ranchowners, mobile home, Louisiana Citizens, FAIR/coastal plans, and specialty transportation/aviation/maritime coverage. Do not import unrelated adjuster-license lines into policy-form questions.

• Saying NFIP adjuster has final authority to create coverage.

• Recognize the policy by exposure/purpose, then analyze its own coverage terms.

Only 1%, but the outline explicitly names five federal topics: fraud/false statements under 18 U.S.C. §§1033–1034, privacy under Gramm-Leach-Bliley, NFIP, TRIA, and the Motor Carrier Act/MCS-90. The prior extras incorrectly substituted HIPAA and misdefined TRIA/MCS-90.

• Using HIPAA instead of GLBA.

• Memorize the federal five exactly as printed on the outline.