Research On The Legal Issues Of The System Of Truth Disclosure Obligation

The system of truth disclosure obligation constitutes a special and important legal article in insurance laws,which is the foundation for a stable operation and orderly development of insurance industry.The basis on which to base its values lies in its principle of utmost good credit.Insurance contracts also belong to contracts of utmost good faith.It is the best demonstration of the principle of utmost good faith for the insurance applicants to fulfill the obligation of truth disclosure.It is also one of the most important contents in the insurance credits system.The legislative purpose of truth disclosure obligation is that,due to unaligned information of both parties,insurers do not have as much understanding as insurance applicants in terms of the actual condition of insurance subjects and through the truth disclosure of insurance applicants,insurers can then be able to be aware of the related items that affects whether buying insurance is agreed or how to determine insurance rate,which compensates for the disadvantage of insurers on collecting information.Although insurance laws came into existence relative late in China,with the rapid development of insurance industry and the gradual maturity of legislative techniques,the current 2009 Insurance Act,on the basis of drawing upon the advance legislation expertise of foreign countries,following the trend of protecting the rights and interests of insurance applicants,established the system of truth disclosure that fitted well into China's actual national conditions,which was pretty much of progress compared with previous ones.But it still left some blanks in legislation and these blanks and bugs became much disputed contradictory attention in the legislative practices.The system of truth disclosure is rich in content.This paper,by focusing on the case study,selects some representative legal issues to conduct analysis and discussion.According to the Item 16 in China's Insurance Act,if insurance applicants do not fulfill truth disclosure obligation because of intent or major fault,insurer can terminate the insurance contract.But these two subjective faults cause different legal results.However,there is no specific provision as to how to distinguish intent and major fault.As such,in trial practices relevant judicial judgment criterion is much needed,which easily causes disputes and conflicts.Many scholars hold different views toward the objects of major faults.Some believe it should include important items that are not known because of major faults and important items that are not notified because of major faults.Some are opposed to such views.As stipulated by Insurance Act,if insurance applicants,because of intent or major fault,violates the truth disclosure obligation to such an extent that it affects the insurers on deciding whether to agree insurance or raise insurance rate,insurers have the right to terminate the contracts.This provision has some ambiguity that when the item where insurance applicants fail to fulfill truth disclosure obligation due to intent or major fault,does not relate to the occurrence of insurance accidents,is insurer able to use the right to terminate contract in order to get free from his own responsibility of insurance claim settlement.This has aroused enormous disputes in judicial practices and is of research significance.The first chapter of this paper is an overall introduction of the system of applicant's disclosure obligation.It mainly introduces the basic theory of disclosure obligation:origin,definition and legal nature of disclosure obligation;fulfillment methods of disclosure obligation,including main body,content,methods as well as legal outcome in violation of disclosure obligation.The second chapter introduces the legal significance to distinguish between intent and major fault in disclosure obligation.It first separately introduces the definition of intent and major fault of disclosure obligation and then puts forward the issues and disputes of the two in legal practices by focusing on cases.In the last session,it states the importance factors that should be taken into consideration when distinguishing intent and major fault.The third chapter,on the basis of cases,focuses on introducing objects of major faults.The fourth chapter mainly introduces the disputes that exist in the verification of cause-effect relations between the insurance applicant's violation of disclosure obligation and the occurrence of insurance accidents.It also discusses the related regulations in China concerning the verification of the cause-effect relations between the two.