Study On The Application Of Waiver And Estoppel In Marine Insurance

Waiver and estoppel which are the two unusually characteristic principles in Anglo-American contract law have a vital role to play in the balancing of interest in the area of the Anglo-American contract law and contract of marine insurance law. These two principles are also the restraints of the principle of utmost good faith to the insurer and show the tendency which the legislation and practice of marine insurance pays more attention to protecting the interest of the insurance applicant or the insured. This thesis analyses the application of waiver and estoppel in marine insurance law and compares these two principles with the relevant legal systems in the continental law system by the means of case analyses and theory researches in order to perfect Chinese marine insurance legal system and promote the healthy development of the Chinese marine insurance industry by learning from waiver and estoppel.This thesis falls into five chapters to analyze and research the application of waiver and estoppel in marine insurance.In Chapter One, this thesis begins from introducing the emergence and development of the waiver and estoppel, and points out that waiver and estoppel emerged and developed in order to remedy the limitation of the consideration doctrine in the Anglo-American contract law and realize the fairness and justice of law. And for the sake of realization of interest balance under the principle of utmost good faith in marine insurance, waiver and estoppel were applicable to restraint of the insurer. This thesis further analyses the definition of waiver and estoppel and points out that these two principles are interdependent. Although these two principles show the comparability in characters and results, the difference between them is completely obvious and they have the different requests in application.In Chapter Two, this thesis mainly introduces the relevant legal systems in the continental law system such as verwirkung, culpa in contrahendo and agency by estoppel and compares these legal systems with waiver and estoppel in the Anglo-American law system in order to seek the possibility that contract law in the continental law system can learn from waiver and estoppel in the Anglo-American law system.In Chapter Three and Chapter Four, this thesis discusses respectively the application of waiver and estoppel in marine insurance and analyses in detail the constitutive requirements, the scope of application and limitation in marine insurance and some special applicable rules. Waiver and estoppel are highlighted the importance for restraint of the insurer's abuse of power and protection of the lawful rights enjoyed by the insurance applicant or the insured in marine insurance.In Chapter Five, on the basis of the preceding four chapters, this thesis puts forward the suggestion that we can learn from waiver and estoppel in order to perfect Chinese marine insurance legal system. This thesis points out that the development of the principle of utmost good faith in China determines the indispensability of waiver and estoppel and that the legislation and practice of marine insurance in China also requires learning from waiver and estoppel. Then this thesis analyses the important meaning of perfect Chinese marine insurance legal system by learning from these two principles. On this basis, the author puts forward the suggestion which is to learn from waiver and estoppel in order to contribute the author's mite to perfecting Chinese marine insurance legal system.