The Warranty Of Seaworthiness In Marine Insurance

As we all know, the warranty of seaworthiness is one of the most important parts of the regime of warranty in marine insurance. So the research in this field must have a positive effect in identifying the legal nature of seaworthiness in marine insurance law. With the historical and comparative methods, this thesis will analyze deeply the relative legal provisions ,which are stipulated in 1906 Marine Insurance Act, in order to obtain the advanced aspects of this regime and improve the legislations of marine insurance in our country.Firstly doctrine of seaworthiness in marine insurance is introduced generally, including the origins, extents and nature of this doctrine. The main content of this chapter is focused on the International Safety Management Code. It is expected to have a great impact on definition and developing of seaworthiness. In the second chapter, section 39 in 1906 Marine Insurance Act will be analyzed in details, including the commence of the voyage, subject-matter of the warranty of the seaworthiness, doctrine of stage and no continuing warranty of seaworthiness. Some celebrate cases will be involved in this part in order to make stipulations understood clearly. The content of next part is mainly about problems arising from breach of the warranty of seaworthiness. Besides being discharged from liability automatically, some other problems such as time of discharging liability, waiver of insured, held clause and exemption of warranty of seaworthiness will be discussed systematically. The doctrine of unseaworthiness presumption is introduced as another useful tool in unseaworthiness allegation. The last chapter of this thesis involves the provisions in both domestic law and marine policy in insurance market, by which we can obtain the distinction between implied warranty and exclusion clauses. So the author gives the ideas about how to balance the relationship between the underwriter and the insured by using the seaworthiness as exclusion a clause or an express warranty in marine policy instead of introducing the regime of implied warranty of seaworthiness into domestic marine insurance law.