A Study On The Legal Effects Of The Duty Of Disclosure In Marine Insurance And Reforming Tendency

One of the most important content of utmost good faith is the duty of disclosure under the marine insurance, which requires that one party of the contract must disclose to the other one, before the contract is concluded, any material circumstance relevant to the subject matter insured or perils insured known by the assured, according to the prescriptions of law, which influences the other party to make correct judgments and decide whether to and on what condition to conclude the contract. The article223of the maritime law prescribes the legal effects of duty of disclosure of the assured. But as it is uncertainty, there are many disputes, which are aroused in the practice. With the great development of the marine insurance industry, shipping powers, such as Australia, Norway, Germany, etc, have carried out some new changes, especially in the area of the duty of disclosure since1980s. This paper attempts to discuss the legal effects of the duty of disclosure, by the analysis of this marine insurance tendency, and concludes the possibility of adding this new rule to our law system, to improve Chinese maritime law and insurance industry. Due to its clear international characteristics, referring to the experience of foreign law will also be good for the construction of insurance industry.This paper tries to reasoning this possibility of importing this new rule by many means, such as analysis of comparative law and economy. This paper consists of three parts, which are introduction, body and conclusion. The text is divided into five chapters. The first chapter is the overview of duty of disclosure under marine insurance act, and this paper briefly grasps the representative national legislative reforming of two legal systems. Chapter2, as the most important part of this thesis, is a summary of proportionate remedy, which discusses the new remedy rule of duty of disclosure. And chapter3discusses about advantages and disadvantages about this reforming tendency at the viewpoint of law theory, background of marine insurance and economy. Then chapter4focuses on the relatively article in the Chinese marine code, trying to find its flaw. In the last chapter, it absorbs the advantages of this new rule and puts forward some suggestions for the legislation of the marine insurance, based on the discussing above.