Research On The Legal Issues Of Double Insurance

The double insurance, also called duplicated insurance, is opposite to the simple insurance. The purpose of double insurance is to prevent applicant from obtaining compensation surpassing the actual damage and avoid moral danger. The double insurance has important theoretical and practical meaning in the insurance law. As the originator of the Insurance Law, the maritime insurance makes several provisions for the double insurance. The concrete clauses we can find on double insurance are Article 56 of the Insurance Law and Article 225 of the Maritime Code, which have different provisions on the notification duty of the applicant and the liability bearing of the insurers in double insurance.The essay aims at making points on double insurance by comparing relevant clauses on double insurance in the Insurance Law and the Maritime Code and consulting the legislation and judicial practice of other countries.The easy is divided into four major parts, discussing three issues. The overall composition is approximately as follows:In the first part, we discuss the scope of application of double insurance. In this regard, the scholars hold three different propositions. The first one is that the double insurance can be applied to all kinds of insurance, the second one is that it can only be applied to property insurance, the last one is that it can be applied to indemnity insurance. According to the nature of insurance objects, insurance could be divided into property insurance and life insurance. Taking whether the insurance has the characteristic of indemnity into account, the insurance could be divided into indemnity insurance and non-indemnity insurance. Obviously, the double insurance can be applied to property insurance. Whether it could be applied to the part of the life insurance which has the characteristic of the indemnity differs widely in the latter two points.The second part focuses on the legal effect of the double insurance. The Insurance Law and the Maritime Code make no provisions for this point. Some scholars propose that the legal effect of the contract should be decided by whether the insured is out of good will or bad will, or whether the insured has carried out duty of notification. The essay analyzes the necessity and feasibility of that, setting legal consequence of violating the obligation of notification on double insurance.The third part is about the liability bearing of insurers in double insurance. The Insurance Law provides that "Where the amount in aggregate of the sum insured by double insurance exceeds the insurable value, the total amount of indemnity paid by all insurers concerned shall not exceed the insurable value." The insured has the right of insurance claim to any insurer in the Maritime Code. How to definite that is an intention of this part.The fourth part is a summarization of this paper, generalizing the central thesis of the paper, which will also serve as the conclusion.