Insurance Rules Against Defense Research

Clause 17 of Marine Insurance Act 1906 prescribes, "A contract of marine insurance is a contract based upon the utmost good faith ,and, if the utmost good faith be not observed by either party ,the contract may be avoided by the other party." According to this, the insured's disclosure duty is strictly requested while the insurer's interests are strongly protected in the utmost good faith. In modern society, insurance, as a system of relieving risks and segregating risks, is vitally related to our life. The insurance trade as well expands from marine business insurance in earlier period to whole area of the society. Therefore, in comparison with the earlier marine insurance, both the managing environment and the managing technique have improved a lot. However, to set up the right and duty of the insurer and the insured just on the basis of the insured's utmost good faith, obviously can not go with the actual development of social life, and will lead to the unfairness in insurance law, even cause the inequity in social life.In the practice of insurance, the insured's utmost good faith usually becomes the excuse of the insurer's proceeding technical defenses, and even malicious defenses. In solving the problem of the unbalance between the insurer and the insured, we can learn from the Waiver and the Estoppel, which have been adopted extensively in Britain and American insurance laws, and consider the utmost good faith as a duty of the insurer in concluding and performing insurance contracts. If the utmost good faith is not observed in the course, the insurer will lose the right of defense which he should have claimed. On the basis of the good faith principle and with the breakthrough of the utmost good faith, the thesis discusses the issue how to construct the insurer's prohibitive defense regulations in insurance law of our country in three parts:Part one analyzes the principle of good faith in concluding insurance contracts—he insured's utmost good faith. Beginning with its law source, the thesis makes a thorough study in the connotation of the good faith principle, which can be comprehended in three sense: in the sense of moral value, the principle of good faith is a kind of sincere and...