Research On The Beneficiary Problems In Present Chinese Insurance Law

Feb. 28^th.2009, Insurance Act Amendment Bill was passed by the NPC standing Committee and officially published. The same year, on October 1st, the new"Insurance law"was put into effect. Insurance Act amendment is an inevitable product of the insurance industry, reflecting the practical needs of the industry, insurance supervision and the community. Coincidentally, Germany and Japan, two important countries in the civil law system, in recent years both had their insurance law systematically modified. Therefore we can say that China's insurance law amendments conform to the world trend of changes in insurance law system.Beneficiary of insurance contract is one of the core issues, which relates to whether the purpose of the contract can be achieved. The newly revised"Insurance Law"has made big advances, such as the principles of insurable interest are more detailed and clearer , direct claim is established in the third party liability insurance, clear how to deal with this matter when the beneficiary and the insured die in the same incident and so on. However the relevant provisions of the beneficiary system are still not perfect: beneficiaries being limited to property insurance; companies shall not be designated as beneficiaries when they buy insurance for their employees which ignores the practical needs of insurance practice. This paper, which divided into four chapters, aims to discuss these relevant issues.The first chapter is on the definition of beneficiary. This chapter starts from the basic theories of insurance beneficiary, examines the meaning of the beneficiary and eligibility. Analyze that the beneficial rights should be called"insurance claim"rather than"compensation claim". Insurance beneficiary eligibility and beneficiaries do not have to have insurable interest on insurance object.The second chapter is on the scope of the insurance beneficiary. This is one of the key parts of this paper. First, summarizing two opposing views in the academic community whether can beneficiary exists in property insurance. Then by comparing and empirical methods, focusing on the reasonableness, necessity and urgency of reality that beneficiary system should be introduced into property insurance.The third chapter is about the designation and change of insurance beneficiary. This chapter discusses who has the right to designate and change the beneficiary, how to exercise the right, and analyze how to deal with non-standard, ambiguous situations in practice. In addition, this paper also comments on the provision that company should not be designated as beneficiary when buy life insurance for its employees, and put forward some new views: such provision will crack down company's enthusiasm and ultimately harm the interests of units and employees, and also not conducive to the development of the insurance industry.The last chapter is on the loss of eligibility of beneficiary. This chapter discusses the loss of beneficiary eligibility from two different aspects, and the resulting legal effect.