General insurance or non-life insurance policies, including automobile and homeowners policies, provide payments depending on the loss from a particular financial event. General insurance is typically defined as any insurance that is not determined to be life insurance. It is called property and casualty insurance in the United States and Canada and non-life insurance in Continental Europe.
Insurance contracts that do not come under the ambit of life insurance are called general insurance. The different forms of general insurance are fire, marine, motor, accident and other miscellaneous non-life insurance.
Description: The tangible assets are susceptible to damages and a need to protect the economic value of the assets is needed. For this purpose, general insurance products are bought as they provide protection against unforeseeable contingencies like damage and loss of the asset. Like life insurance, general insurance products come at a price in the form of premium.
Types of General Insurance in India
Insurance can be widely segregated in three categories–life, health and general. General insurance is insurance for valuables other than our life and health. General insurance covers the insurer against damage, loss and theft of your valuables. The premium and cover of general insurance depends upon the type and extent of insurance. A general insurance policy typically has a period of a few years. In India, general insurance policies are of the following types: 
Motor insurance
Insurance for the damage or theft of your motor vehicle, two-wheeler, three-wheeler or four-wheeler, is covered under this type of insurance. The damage caused to the vehicle can be caused natural or man-made circumstances, the extent of which would change from policy to policy.
Under the Motors Vehicle Act, motor insurance is mandatory in India. New motor vehicles come with third-party insurance right from the showroom itself.
Home insurance
Home and household insurance protects your home and the items inside it. A home insurance policy would also cover natural and man-made circumstances. The contents that are covered under a home insurance policy would depend on the type of policy you buy.
Travel insurance
Another popular type of general insurance is travel insurance, which covers your trips abroad. Travel insurance can be taken to cover loss or theft of your valuables as well as documents. Some travel insurance policies also cover flight delays and medical emergencies. Travel insurance can be taken for personal as well as business trips.
Marine Insurance
Marine insurance is very important because through marine insurance, ship owners and transporters can be sure of claiming damages especially considering the mode of transportation used. Of the four modes of transport – road, rail, air and water – it is the latter most which causes a lot of worry to the transporters not only because there are natural occurrences which have the potential to harm the cargo and the vessel but also other incidents and attributes which could cause a huge loss in the financial casket of the transporter and the shipping corporation.
Incidents like piracy and possibilities like cross-border shoot-outs also pose a major threat when it comes to water transportation and therefore in order to avoid any loss because of such events and happenings, in the interest of the corporation and the transporter, it is always beneficial to have a back-up like a marine insurance.
Fire insurance was started after marine insurance. Marine insurance was useful only to persons engaged in some kind of trade. The fire havoc can be experienced by persons of all walks of life. The Great Fire of London in 1956 destroyed 13,000 houses in four days. This ‘Great Fire’ gave birth to Fire Insurance. Fire insurance is a contract to indemnify the loss suffered by the insured. This contract does not help in controlling or preventing fire but it is a promise to compensate the loss.
FIRE INSURANCE
A fire insurance is an agreement between two parties, i.e., insurer and insured, whereby insurer undertakes to indemnify the loss suffered by the insured in consideration for his (insured) paying of certain sum called ‘Premium’.
A fire insurance contact may be defined as ‘an agreement’ whereby one party in return for a consideration undertakes to indemnify the other party against financial loss which the latter may sustain by reason of certain subject-matter being damaged or destroyed by fire or other defined perils up to an agreed amount.