| dc.description.abstract | The insurable interest doctrine is one of the fundamental principles in insurance law. It has been long established that it can affect whether the contract is void and whether an assured can make a claim. It has played a role in distinguishing insurance contracts from other risk-transferring contracts, preventing wager policies and moral hazards, etc. However, since the nineteenth century, there has been a debate about what can be sufficient to constitute an insurable interest. Also, along with other issues with insurable interest, it has been argued that the requirement is nowadays unnecessary and may have had a negative effect on the assured’s position. Thus, the proposals to remove the requirement and to widen the concept of insurable interest, etc. have arisen globally amongst academics, the courts and legal practitioners.
The UK has thus responded to the call for reform by the Law Commissions conducting a review project on insurable interest. They have in detail discussed the problems with insurable interest and then set out arguments for both retaining and repealing it. They then published the proposals for the purpose of clarifying and ascertaining the law on insurable interest. To benefit the discussion on reform in this area of law in the UK, the reform of the law on insurable interest in other countries, such as in Australia, New Zealand and China has also been studied.
Without a deep understanding of the background and theory of insurable interest, it can be difficult to conclude whether it should be retained and which test for it should be adopted. In order to make it clear, the history and pure theory of insurable interest is discussed in Chapters 1 and 2. Chapter 3 then sets out the problems with the requirement of insurable interest derived from both law and practice. The remaining three chapters, i.e. Chapters 4, 5 and 6 have, from a comparative perspective, introduced the law on insurable interest in indemnity insurance, including marine insurance and relevant reforms. Indeed, other jurisdictions have adopted different approaches to the requirement of insurable interest at the time of contract and its definitions seem to be distinct from those in the UK.
Finally, in conclusion, the core issue will be answered for the purpose of unifying the law on insurable interest in indemnity insurance and promoting the prosperity of the insurance industry: that is, whether the insurable interest is still required nowadays, and, if it is, when it must attach; additionally, whether an economic interest is sufficient to be an insurable interest or whether the legal relation to the subject matter of insurance is still needed. | en_GB |
