A Research On Open Cover In Marine Insurance

The open cover can not only fulfill insurer’s need of getting permanent premium, but also get rid of the insured’s worry of omission declaration. So it’s used widely in the insurance market. However, provisions about the open cover are insufficient in existing legislation of PRC, and can only be found in the Maritime Law, while rather crude.This thesis consists of four chapters, introducing the open cover from the basic concept, the retrospective effect, and the declaration obligation. The first chapter has researched the definition of the open cover through comparing the operation procedure in the foreign insurance market with that in China, analyzing the legislation on the open cover in England. The open cover is a long-term contract, whereby the insure guarantees to accept risks when they are put forward by the assured as they arise during the period of the contract. The assured agrees to declare every item that falls within the scope of the cover and dose not have the option to place such risks elsewhere should he consider it an obligatory contract binding both parties to its item. And then this chapter has discussed the condition for the establishment and the effectiveness of the open cover, considered that the oral contract is effective, but to take consideration of its characteristics, author suggested that the open cover should be concluded in written. In the end of the chapter, the author advocated that the open cover is a volume contract. The second chapter has mainly described the insurance period of the open cover, did an in-depth analysis on the retrospective effect, discussing its nature and the condition for application. The third chapter has studied on the assured’s declaration obligation, took for that the obligation is including three aspects, declaring in time, full declaration and declaring actually. The assured violating different aspects would lead to different results. Finally in the forth chapter, to improve our legislation on the open cover, the thesis, combining our own industry process, has put forward some suggestions on the amending of the provisions about the open cover in the Maritime Law.