On The Obligation To Inform The System Of Marine Insurance

Utmost good faith, one of the fundamental principles of marine insurance, requires the assured to disclose faithfully to the insurer all material circumstances of which the assured has or should have knowledge about the subject matter insured or the risks covered before the contract of marine insurance is concluded. The purpose of disclosure is to facilitate the insurer to better assess the risks before underwriting, and to determine the premium and other contractual terms and conditions. Thus, the duty of disclosure is the foundation of marine insurance and it matters a lot in formation of an insurance contract as well as termination thereof.Articles 222 and 223 of China Maritime Code relate to the duty of disclosure of the assured. For one reason or another, these articles are not always capable of solving the problems arising in marine insurance practice and sometimes give rise to difficulties in interpretation in judicial practice, indicating that these articles may have failed to catch up with the development pace of marine insurance of this country in 21st century. In this dissertation, the author started with an analysis of the essentials of the duty of disclosure and then, in light of the existing legislative reality in this country, tried to review the theory as well as the practice of disclosure in marine insurance and finally offered some comments of her own on some of the current rules of law with reference to Marine Insurance Act 1906, in the hope of improvement of legislation and sound development of marine insurance in this country.This dissertation consists of three parts, i.e., the preface, the body and the epilogue. The preface gives a brief introduction of the writing background and defines some terms used in the dissertation. The body includes four chapters. Chapter One gives a brief account of the duty of disclosure in marine insurance and delimits the connotation and denotation of the duty by way of an analysis of its...