A Study On China Insurance Beneficial Right

The imperfectness of China current insurance law on beneficiary and beneficial right provision leads to many unwanted disputes and hinders the healthy development of insurance industry. In order to take a thorough look at the beneficial right, this dissertation takes the subject of beneficial right—the beneficiary as the research core, focuses on the rules and regulations of insurance beneficial right, and studies the related issues such as, the concept, the values, the subject, the scope, the nature, the establishment, the alteration, the termination and the exertion of beneficial right. In addition, this dissertation provides many legislative of China Insurance Law, So as to perfect the rules and regulations.The whole text is divided into five parts. The first part discusses the beneficial right in general, which contends the concept, the characteristic and the value of beneficial right. The concept in broad sense, medium sense and narrow sense are provided to show that the medium understanding of beneficial right is close to the provision of our country. And the study of this text is based in the medium understanding of the beneficial right as well. About of beneficial right have three main characteristic, which are: A. beneficiary right is established for the third part. B. it is closely related to the body or the life of the subject. C. it violates the principal of contract between particular people. The last of section of this part is the value of beneficial right, both the theoretical and the practical value to study beneficial right are introduced. Therefore, it is highly necessary to analyze the problems which are aroused in law and in practice.The nature of beneficial right can be found in the second part. This text weights a lot on this part. The quasi-certainty of beneficial right is the precondition of the study in other related matter. Most scholars take expectative right, property right and inherent right as the nature of beneficial right, but they are not proper. While the opinion of Professor Jiang Chaoguo and other scholars from Taiwan of China, China sheds light on the author. Thus, the author decides to discuss the issue from the angle of before and after the covered perils. Before the covered perils, there are two situations. In one situation, the insurant and the insured person without the right to alter beneficiary involved in the legal relationship, while in the other situation, we have insurant and the insured person with the right to alter beneficiary. Under the first circumstance the beneficial right is the expectative right, while under the second circumstance, the beneficial right is only an expectative status. After the covered perils, right of claim, property right and inherent right compose the nature of beneficial right. The subject and the scope of beneficial right are discussed in part three.The provisions of beneficiary in many rations are introduced and the provisions in China are analyzed. As for thee scope, first of all, whether there is any beneficial owner in property insurance is analyzed which points out that Article 22, Clause 3 is jurisprudential and reasonable the provision of Insurance Law of the People's Republic of China. Having a beneficiary is the peculiar of property law contract. And is it correct that where there is a property insurance contract, there is a beneficiary ? After dealing with that question, the author finds that there is nothing wrong with the provision which enacts beneficial owners in all types of property insurance contract. Then can an artificial person become a beneficiary ? Generally speaking, China doesn't prohibit an artificial person to own beneficial right. However, it's better to focus on the content of the employees and the way to protect the right for the employees to show their opinions on that matter.The fourth part studies the establishment, the alteration and the extinction of beneficial right separately. In terms of the establishment, domestic and foreign laws ordain mainly two types of beneficiary which are designated beneficiary and statutory beneficiary. After investigating Insurance Law of the PRC, the author finds great defect and makes some suggestion on revision. As for the alteration, China permits to alter directly, but how to alter is unclear, so dispute can be easily caused. Then the author suggests to annual the privilege of the beneficiary to appoint and change the insurant. Also, the author doesn't think it is proper to change the beneficiary at one's will.There are two ways to cause the extinction. One is because of the beneficiary himself, the other is because of other persons apart from the beneficiary. The loss the abandon of the right of beneficiary is because of the beneficiary himself. Article 65 of Insurance Law of the PRC needs to be modified. The right of beneficiary can also extinct, if the policyholder or the insurant alters the beneficiary or the policy holder dissolves the insurance contract.Exercise of beneficial right and payment of insurance money under special circumstances are studied in part five. The exercise section contends the condition and the limitation of action. On the condition part, the author promotes another two essentials which are performing the subordinated obligation and not causing the covered perils intently, along with the two traditional elements. The limitation claim of for life insurance is 5 years while for other insurances are 2 years, from the time the beneficiary gets the knowledge of the covered perils happened. Payment of insurance money under special circumstances is the key of this part. If the insured person survives the beneficiary, the insurant or the insured person certainly appoint a new beneficiary. If they don't appoint another beneficiary, when there is only one beneficiary, according to the Article 64 of Insurance Law of the PRC, the insurance money is treated as the bequest of the insured person and the insurant performs the payment of insurance compensation to the heirs of the insured person. If the beneficiary is more than one person, and other beneficiaries are alive, the author believes that measures vary according to the form of beneficiary. If the insurance policy writes to allot money by proportion, then the rest of the beneficiaries can get the money by that proportion. If the insurance policy didn't mention the proportion or it writes to allot the money equally, then the rest beneficiaries can get the same amount of money. When the appointed beneficiary and the insured person died at the same time, in the author's opinion, if there is other beneficiary, the money goes to him ; if not, the money goes to the heir of the insured person as his bequest. When the beneficiary and the insured person died at the same accident and can not identify who died first, the author objects to solve the problem according to Law of Succession. The best way is to modify the Insurance Law to enact this matter, but there is no tendency to modify the law lately. Therefore, it is practical to make an agreement between the insurant and the insured person when signing the life insurance contract. When the covered perils happened before the insured person signing the insurance policy, the author thinks that the contract can be viewed as established and executed, and the insurance company has to pay for the insurance compensation.