Insurance Law Obligation To Inform

Disclosure obligation is unique obligation of Insurance Law, which shows theparticularity of Law of Insurance Contracts. The performance of disclosure obligationhas absolute impact on the validity of contract of insurance, but the ambiguity of Article17 of Law of Insurance on disclosure obligation leads to ceaseless disputes in theinsurance practical procedure;the un-unanimous interpretation of Article 17 of Law ofInsurance by court during its application results that the cases of the same kind havedifferent endings during the judicial practice. Various opinions in the insurance circleand legal circle directly damage the normal operation and development of insuranceindustry. This article will, through the theoretical research on the disclosure obligationof contract of insurance, combining with the insurance practical procedure, try to studythe establishment the disclosure obligation criterion of contract of insurance under thesituation of our country for the standardized operation and healthy and ordereddevelopment of insurance circle.This article consists of three parts: preface, body and conclusion. The prefaceintroduces the study motivation, study objective, study method and framework of thisarticle. The body is constituted of five chapters. The first chapter studies the basictheory of disclosure obligation, including its definition, feature, and the legislative basis.Disclosure obligation is contractual obligation. In the theoretical basis, the authorindicates that analysis shall be made integrative from historical, economical and legalpoints of view;and especially that the disclosure obligation is the result of times, it willdevelop along with development of times;disclosure obligation has different features indifferent historical periods;the author also indicates that the analysis from legal point ofview shall be based on the special feature of contract of insurance for the analysis oflegislative basis of disclosure obligation;the legislative basis of disclosure obligationare the principle of utmost of good faith, consideration and balance principle, these twoprinciples themselves are the essential features of contract of insurance. Chapter twointroduces the provisions of Anglo-America law of insurance on disclosure obligation,and the development of disclosure obligation;this chapter indicates that in theinformation disclosure system of insurance applicant to the insured under theAnglo-America law, there are still supplemented guarantee system, waiver and estoppelsystem besides the disclosure system, which we don't have in our country. These threesystems, disclosure system, guarantee system, waiver and estoppel system are theembodiment of the principle of utmost of good faith on insurance law, and these hadprovided rigorous safeguard system for the full protection of the interest of insuranceapplicant and the insured. In the Law of Insurance in our country, we only set upprovisions on disclosure obligation, without the provisions on other two systems.Foreign advanced legislative experience deserves its reference by us. Chapter threedeconstructs the disclosure obligation from five main parts such as performance subject,performance time, performance scope and performance method and its exemption. Theinsured and the insurance agent shall be added as performance subjects, while insuranceagent and medical examiner shall be added as the performance recipient subject;as tothe performance time, we shall stipulate the disclosure obligation of the insuranceapplicant and the insured not only at the time of concluding this contract, but also insome special circumstance, such as at the time of resuming contract's validity, contractrenewal, modification of the contract of insurance;for the performance scope, weshould learn from foreign legislation and introduce the concept of material fact;as to themethod of judging material fact, we shall introduce the concept of reasonable insuranceapplicant, the risk of non-disclosure of material fact, no matter intentionally ornegligently, shall be considered together with whether this will effect the insurer tomake decision for accepting the insurance or to increase the insurance premium rate.The performance method shall be written notification;as to the exemption of disclosureobligation, this article will discuss whether the medical examiner can exempt thedisclosure obligation of the insurance applicant. Chapter four discusses the legalconsequence of violating disclosure obligation, and indicates that the theory of causeand effect shall be applied between non-disclosure of fact and insured accident;and weshall stipulate different legal consequence according to different circumstance betweeninsurance refusal by the insurer and increase of insurance premium. We shall addscheduled period, five years in my suggestion, during the exercise of the right toterminate, and the scheduled period shall be in accordance with actual situation of ourcountry, and shall introduce Incontestable Clause based on foreign legislativeexperience. In the five chapter, the author will put forward some suggestion on theimprovement and modification of Article 17 of Law of Insurance based on thereanalysis of disclosure obligation.