Plain version: insurance should put you back where you were, not make you richer; it is a deal with you personally, not with your house; and both sides must be honest about what they know.

Indemnity: the insurer restores the insured to about the same financial position as before the loss, without letting the insured profit. If a covered fire causes $18,000 of damage, the measure is $18,000 (ignoring any deductible), not the policy limit and not something extra for the trouble. The policy limit is only the most the insurer will pay.

Personal contract: the insurer agreed to cover a particular insured after evaluating that person. The policy does not pass with the property, so when a house is sold, the buyer needs the insurer's consent or her own policy. That decision belongs to the insurer, not to the Insurance Commissioner.

Utmost good faith: under California Insurance Code §332, each party to the contract must communicate in good faith all facts within its knowledge that are, or that it believes to be, material and as to which it makes no warranty, and that the other party has no means of ascertaining. The duty runs both ways, to the applicant and to the insurer.