Glossary

A dismissal is an order or judgment disposing of an action, suit, motion, etc., without a judgment or trial.

Disparagement of goods is an untrue or misleading statement about a competitor's goods made with the purpose of inducing consumers not to buy the product.

Disparate impact discrimination claims involve apparently neutral policies that have the effect of discriminating against a certain class of persons, even though such discrimination may not be intentional.

Disparate treatment discrimination claims involve illegal, deliberate discrimination against an individual, such as failing to promote an otherwise qualified employee based upon race, age, sex, or national origin.

Dispersion is a statistical term denoting the variability of a distribution around the mean or other central tendencies.

A distribution system refers to the method by which an insurer reaches its insureds—that is, as direct writer, wholesaler, agency system, or broker market.

Diversification is a risk control technique that spreads loss exposures over a myriad of projects, products, areas, or markets.

Diversification credit is an enterprise risk management term referring to the recognition of the "portfolio effect"—that is, the fact that the economic capital required at the enterprise level will be less than the sum of the capital requirements of the business segments calculated on a stand-alone basis.

A divided risk endorsement can be attached to any type of insurance policy for the purpose of delineating exposures covered by particular insurance policies (e.g., project or site-specific policies) to remove any possibility of double coverage.

Dividends are a partial return of premium to the insured based on the insurer's financial performance or on the insured's own loss experience.