Marine Liability Insurance Laws

Marine liability insurance belongs to marine insurance and is the general term of insurance which subject-matter insured is limited to marine liability. Marine liability insurance of China briefly speaking refers to the insurance which subject-matter insured is "liabilities to a third person" listed in the Article 218 of Maritime Code of P. R. China.In our country, the legal rules applying to the practice of marine liability insurance are the concerned provisions on the contract of marine insurance in Maritime Code of P. R. China, or the provisions in Insurance Law of P. R. China if there is no correspondent provision in Maritime Code of P. R. China and some other provisions. But, in fact, where the legal rules above mentioned apply to the practice of marine liability insurance, much defect may come into being which will result in obscure legal position of the concerned parties and will fail to properly resolve some problems appeared in the practice. In other words, compared with the thriving development in the practice of marine liability insurance, the legal rules and concerned studies of legal theories become increasingly imperfect.In order to perfect the concerned legal rules and heighten the concerned studies of legal theories, the author would apply comprehensively the historical study method, semantic analysis method and comparative study method etc. to preliminarily study the following issues: the evolving tendency of the practice and regulations (or legal rules) in the field of marine liability insurance and the relationship between them, the legal characteristic of marine liability insurance, the difference between the reasoning in the process of the marine liability being characterized as subject-matter insured and the ship, cargo or freight being characterized as subject-matter insured, and the oversight and impropriety in the present concerned legal rules of China.In the field of marine liability insurance, the concerned legal rules or regulations and the practice supplement and better each other with an organically reciprocal relation. And they have experienced a process from zero to now, from imperfection to increasing perfection. At present, with the growing prospers development in the practice, the respondent legal rules and theories are urged to be perfect.Confronting the problems in the practice of marine liability insurance to which our present legal provisions cannot properly applied, the author believes that, though the marine liability is characterized as subject-matter insured with ships, cargo and other listed in the Article 218 of the Maritime Code of P. R. China, the legal reasoning used in the process in which marine liability is characterized as subject-matter insured is different from the other objects such as ship, cargo and etc. The cause of the problem lies in that the difference between the two kinds of legal reasoning is neglected. More exactly, marine liability is characterized assubject-matter insured because it is a kind of loss by itself which is caused by maritime perils, and the purpose of this contract of marine insurance is to protect it from that happening. While, the other objects such as ship, cargo and etc are characterized as subject-matter insured because they are a kind of right or pecuniary interest, which will be damaged by maritime perils when it is under the threat of maritime perils; and the purpose of this contract of marine insurance is to save it from damage. Maybe the exposition can be called "the theory of legal reasoning in the process of characterizing subject-matter insured" which is the key theory of this paper.Basing on the theory above mentioned, the author makes a preliminary analysis about the concerned legal provisions, explores the causes of the problems when it applied to the practices of marine liability insurance, and accordingly gives some initial advices, in order to ensure the legal rights of the concerned parties, properly deal with the problems appeared in our practice, and also contribute something to the healthy development...