Severability

Provision in a directors’ and officers’ liability policy that the wrongful act or knowledge of one director or officer is not to be imputed to another for the purpose of utmost good faith or application of a policy exclusion. Each insured person is treated as having arranged his own cover.
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A provision that insurance applies separately to each insured under the policy. Also, that facts relating to or knowledge possessed by one insured person will not be imputed to any other insured person either for purposes of applying the exclusions in the policy or invoking a coverage defense based upon misrepresentations in the application. As a result of this type of provision, the policy is treated as “severable” or a separate policy issued to each insured person and the conduct or knowledge of one insured person will not jeopardize coverage afforded to other insured persons. Typically, different severability provisions apply with respect to policy exclusions, on the one hand, and application representations, on the other. Absent severability provisions, the knowledge or conduct of one insured person may result in loss of coverage to all other insured persons, including “innocent” insured persons who had no involvement in or knowledge of the conduct that gave rise to the application misrepresentations or excluded conduct.

Severability Clause

A clause in some reinsurance agreements providing that, should any part of the agreement be found illegal or otherwise unenforceable, the remainder of the agreement will continue in force while the illegal part will be severed from the agreement, or in some cases, modified to remove the illegality. Severability may apply to the entire agreement or be limited to a specific provision that may present enforceability issues. For example, in jurisdictions where punitive damages are uninsurable, a severability clause in an Extra Contractual Obligations provision (or as a separate clause) will preserve the overall enforceability of the provision, even though a portion of the ECO provision has been invalidated.

Severity

Word used to describe the level of seriousness of a patient’s medical condition.
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The amount of damage that is (or that may be) inflicted by a loss or catastrophe. Sometimes quantified as a severity rate, which is a ratio relating the amount of loss to values exposed to loss during a specified period.

severity of illness (SOI)

1. Degree of disease or loss of function and mortality that a patient is experiencing before treatment. Severity of illness is used in the interpretation of performance data of facilities. 2. Variation in patients classified to the same diagnosis related group that includes age, systems involved in illness, stage of disease, complications, and response to treatment.