International Marine Cargo Insurance Benefits Transfer Legal Issues

On the insurable interest of international marine cargo, academic perspectives and legislations are different, resulting in the transfer of insurable interest lack of clarity. While the transfer of insurable interest may affect the effectiveness and the performance of insurance contract, and finally affect the rights and obligations of the parties. Meanwhile China's Maritime Law, the Insurance Law, and other laws are under the imperfections and not even clear, and the trial practice has to make a choice, all of these make it necessary to study the transfer of insurable interest further. In this paper several methods such as comparative methods are used. The full text is divided into six parts.The first part discusses the definition of insurable interest. Comparing the different national legislations, as well as China's relevant laws, we can see that national legislations have different attitudes and China are facing legislative difficulty; through the vertical development and horizontal comparison, we can get two mainstream viewpoints. So we can conclude that the insurable interest is "legitimate and economic interest that can be determined." "legitimate" is not limited to the existing statute, but follows the principle of "No Law expressly provide is legitimate". "Economic interest" is a cargo relevant, or benefit or damage of interest. Such stake can be measured by money. "That can be defined" is not only by the existing legal relations, but also allowing the subject of insurance contract to determine whether a stake is insurable interest independently under the "autonomy" principle.The second part focuses on the transfer subject of insurable interest. First of all, by comparing the relationships of the insurance applicant and the insured with the insurable interest and its transfer, introducing the "agent" and "voluntary service" theory in civil law, we can conclude that the insured is the subject of insurable interest and its transfer subject. Secondly, as to the existing interest, the interest of expectations and the interest of responsibilities, the transfer of all the three kinds of interests are possible, thereby the subject of insurable interest is likely to become its transfer subject. Seen from the subject of insurable interests, not all the subjects can transfer the interest. The third part analyses the general transfer time of insurable interest. By discussing three important time points, we can get three conclusions: the time the subject gets the insurable interest is the earliest transfer time; the insurance applicant is not required to have insurable interest when he has goods insured, and this doesn't lead insurance contract to necessarily invalid and the transfer of insurable interest will not put an inevitable impact on the effect of insurance contracts; The insured needs to have insurable interest when accident occurs, and the insured's having the insurable interest is the condition of the entry into force or the performance of insurance contract. Secondly, it lists the transfer times by different subjects. Thirdly, focus on the general transfer time between buyers and sellers: insurable interest will be transferred with the shifting of risk burden and the delivery of cargos.Part Four studies the special transfer time of insurable interest between buyers and sellers. Beginning with the different breaches of contract, according to the principle of "Not conducive to the breach of contract", it analyses the particularity of no transfer, advance transfer, time of should be transfer and rotary. Recognize the priority of other agreements. It also simply discusses the special transfer time under L/C and International Factoring.Part Five discusses the transfer of insurable interest under the assignment of insurance contract. The insured is identified as transfer subject in the former. While in the latter, the transfer subject is the insurance applicant. Only in some cases, they are the same. In addition, the change of the insured affects differently in the two fields. The transfer time of insurable interest has already been explained above, while the earliest transfer time of insurance contract starts at the establishment of insurance contract, and it can be in prior to the incident or after that. At last the causal relationship between the former and the latter is studied. The former would generally leads to the latter, but it is not the only reason. And the former doesn't necessarily lead to the latter.Part Six proposes several amendments of the China's Maritime Law.