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The differences are a function of how you choose to define the terms, which can have somewhat elastic meanings. But fundamentally they differ because they have to do with two separate things.
An "insurgency" refers to the nature or form of the conflict. Though some doctrinal publications muddy the waters by defining insurgency by an end - the overthrow of a government - fundamentally, the end does not matter. Whether a group seeks to overthrow an established government, break away from the central government, force the government to make accomodations, make a profit, or just kill people isn't really relevant. An insurgency is defined by the means employed - primarily guerrilla but also perhaps involving political agitation, terrorism and/or some conventional military operations - and its scale - somewhere on the middle of the spectrum between full-blown conventional warfare and gang or terrorist violence.
A "civil war" refers to the purpose of the conflict. A "civil war" is contrasted with a war between or among separate states. It is simply a war within a state. The tactics/methods are not the issue - as Axl Rose once asked, "what's so civil about war anyway?"
Civil wars fall into various categories, but each is defined by the end sought, not the methods chosen to achieve them (though, of course, the essence of strategy is adapting the means employed to the ends sought). The most recognizable category is the revolutionary, the attempt to overthrow and replace the existing government - the Spanish Civil War is a classic example. The other major category is a separatist war, an attempt by a region to break away from the central government, of which the U.S. Civil War is the classic example. A third category might be sectarian, a war within a state among ethnic or religious factions, but this category is somewhat ephemeral, as the goals are often unclear and sometimes these do have revolutionary or separatist overtones. The English Civil War is generally classified as of the sectarian variety.
There is of course overlap among these categories. Was the American Revolution a civil war among British loyalists and those who would establish their own form of government, or a separatist war between breakaway colonies and their mother country?
The scale is also a factor in defining civil wars versus domestic violence. A war gets called a civil war when it reaches a level of violence that makes the overthrow of the regime or the breakaway of a region conceivable. This is a bit of a logical fallacy - begging the question - since it boils down to "we call it a civil war when it is big enough to be called a civil war." This is where means and ends get muddied and questions are asked such as whether an insurgency is now a full-scale civil war. And some authors trying to define "civil war" do fall into this, basically seeing a civil war as categorized by full-scale conventional warfare, as opposed to "just" insurgent violence or an even lower level of violence.
This is where the "is the situation in Iraq becoming a civil war" question muddies the categories and begs the question. The insurgency doesn't become a civil war merely by becoming more violent or deadly. It does by reaching a point where there are clear sides with definable and achievable ends (I admit "achievable" does involve question-begging, but I think we recognize that it is a factor - anarchists may have definable ends, but are never likely to be seen as a side in a civil war because they are too small and radical to ever conceive of actually accomplishing those ends or getting a sufficient number of their countrymen to join the cause).
In Iraq, for example, it is hard to conceive of the predominantly Sunni insurgents ever leading a successful revolutionary civil war. They are simply outnumbered by Shi'ite Arabs, Kurds and non-insurgent Sunnis to ever achieve that end. The Ba'athists may be nostalgic for the power they once had, and that nostalgia may fuel their ardor, but the relative power positions have changed too radically - the Ba'athist Sunni-dominated Iraqi security forces have been destroyed and the Shi'ites and Kurds have enough power that they won't go back to the status quo ante 2003.
And though the Sunnis are a relatively distinct subgroup in Iraq. there appears to be no viable separatist sentiment. The Sunni insurgents are not seeking to break the so-called Sunni Triangle away from the central government.
The non-Ba'athist insurgents, the Islamist terrorists of Al-Qa'ida in Iraq and similar groups, might arguably have a revolutionary goal, the establishment of an Islamic regime, but like the anarchists this is not an especially achievable goal, since not only would it require cowing the more secular elements in Iraqi society, but also the entire Shi'ite majority, since AQ's brand of Islamism is extremely hostile to Shi'ism.
Rather, their goals seem to be like those of anarchists, simply to foment violence for violence's sake in the hope that outsiders like the US will just give up and abandon the country to anarchy. The Ba'athists still hold out some hope that the Iraqi people will look for a Ba'athist Napoleon to save them from this anarchy, while it is hard to see the Islamists as having any real objective other than perpetuating the anarchy - they are a death cult that kills for the sake of killing. But while they certainly can perpetuate the violence, the ends do not seem achievable. The Shi'ites and their allies are far more likely to exterminate the Ba'athists (and as many innocent Sunni Arabs as get caught in the line of fire) than simply give the Ba'athists the keys to Saddam's mansions and prisons back.
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