Research On Legal Problems Of Protection And Indemnity Insurance

Protection and indemnity (hereinafter referred to as "P&I") insurance plays an important role in marine insurance, which is a kind of insurance in respect of third party liabilities and expenses arising from owning ships or operating ships as principals, but exclusive of the scope accepted by hull insurance. As a necessary complementary to the hull insurance, P&I insurance accommodates the external need of shipowners during the operation of the vessel, and thus exerts an enormous impact on the development of international shipping industry. P&I insurance greatly enriches the meaning of marine insurance; meanwhile, it profoundly challenges the current marine insurance legislation.This thesis, by synthetically utilizing the related theories in the field of civil law, commercial law, marine insurance law, international law, etc., and, through the study on legislation and judicial practice of marine insurance in the United Kingdom and the United State legal system, analyses the relevant legal issues of P&I insurance. Based on the above, this thesis is trying to table proposals to deepen the research on P&I insurance and perfect our national legislation in this field. The subject part of this thesis includes four chapters as follows:The first chapter begins with the general situation of P&I insurance, including the nature and the history, and then combines the introduction to the development trend of international marine liability insurance to analyze the development trend of P&I insurance.The second chapter deals with the legal characters of P&I insurance contract and the applicability of marine insurance law. The fifth section of this chapter analyzes the application of basic principles of marine insurance law to P&I insurance contract, i.e., principle of insurance interest, principle of indemnity and principle of utmost good faith, to further demonstrate the legal characters of P&I insurance contract. The third chapter firstly analyzes the legal status of P&I club from the aspect of subject law. Secondly, this chapter analyzes the legal status of P&I club from the aspect of the procedural law, mainly focusing on the P&I club's right of subrogation and the direct action against P&I club.The fourth chapter provides some opinions for the legislation of P&I insurance of China based on the above analysis.