Research On Division Of Responsibilities Of Principle Of Proximate Cause In Marine Insurance

The Principle of Proximate Cause originated from American and British marineinsurance law, and had been accepted by most countries in the world. It is thefundamental to diagnose the causal relationship between the reason of accident damageand loss of subject matter insured in order to determine insurance liability. With thedevelopment of trade in maritime transport, marine insurance industry progress, allcountries in the world is stipulate the principle of proximate cause by legislation, orform of precedent. In marine insurance claims, it can be said that the primary aim of theprinciple of proximate cause is used to determine the insurance liability of the insurer.In a certain risk or accident cause the loss of insurance mark, the principle of proximatecause is the important basis to judge the insurer responsibility and whether the insurershould be compensated. In this paper, the author mainly used the empirical analysis,literature research, induction and other research methods. The author introduced thetheory of principle of proximate cause in marine insurance, summarized the rules inmarine insurance in practice of the principle of proximate cause divisions responsibility,analyzed the legislative status quo of China’s marine insurance liability to paycompensation, and accordingly put forward some suggestions to perfect out country’sthe principle of proximate cause using rules.In this paper, the applicable rules of this principle divide responsibility are devided intosingle proximate cause damage of rules and multiple rules of proximate cause damage.In the single proximate cause damage,“Effectiveness Criteria” and “Common SenseStandard” are used to choose and identify variety of reasons, find out the nearest cause,then use this principle to demarcate the compensation liability of the insurer. In themultiple proximate cause damage, the distinction of property of the proximate cause ofdamage is used to define the insurer is liable and combine with related cases.The maritime legislation in China, there is no concept of principle of proximate cause,and there is no law about marine insurance responsibility to apply this principle, but inthe theory and practice has been using the principle of proximate cause to deal withrelated cases. The confusion in the insured liability caused by the separation betweenlegislation and practice is unable to meet the needs of the current practice of marineinsurance. Therefore, in this paper, in the view of the development of China’s marineinsurance and the realistic need of liability boundary points, the author thought that weshould introduce the principle of proximate cause in the maritime law. At the same time, we can issue some significant cases, and clear the rules which to divide theresponsibility through this principle. In view of the limited ability and reading, theauthor put forward some shallow personal suggestions, in hope of discussing witheveryone.