Research On Liability Of Marine Insurer For Mixed-Causes Damages

In the case of damage caused by a single cause of the insured subject,the liability of the marine insurer is not in dispute.According to the principle of proximate cause under the Maritime Insurance Act1906,if the insured danger is the proximate cause of the damage,the insurer shall bear to the insured compensation liability.Otherwise,the insurer is not liable for payment.However,the situation in marine insurance practice is actually more complicated.There are often more than one cause of insured accidents,and the types of causes are different.In this case,it is not clear whether the insurer bears the liability for compensation and how much liability it bears.In determining the liability of a marine insurer under mixed causes of damage,the principle of proximate cause under the Maritime Insurance Act 1906 and the rule of distribution rule under Norwegian Marine Insurance Plan have different approaches to this problem.Under the principle of proximate cause,generally speaking,when the insured risk and uninsured risk together lead to the loss of the insured object and the proximate cause cannot be identified,the British judicial precedent tends to protect the interests of the insured and support the claim that the insured has the right to all the insurance benefits.However,when the insured risks and exclusions lead to the loss of the subject matter of insurance together and the proximate cause cannot be identified,the mainstream view holds that the exclusionary liability has the priority,and the insurer does not have to bear the compensation liability.When dealing with the claims of marine insurers under mixed causes of damage in Norway,Norwegian Marine Insurance Plan is mainly used.According to clause under the Norwegian Marine Insurance Plan(2013 Revision),the rules of dominance rules are adopted in the case of mixed damage caused by marine hazards and war hazards.If the danger is determined to be the dominant cause of the insured accident,the ship insurer shall be liable for compensation.Otherwise,the ship insurer shall not be liable for compensation.In the case of damage caused by other mixed risks,the apportion rule is adopted,that is,if the loss has been caused by a combination of different perils,and one or more of these perils are not coverd by the insurance,the loss shall be apportioned over the individual perils according to the influence each of the them,the ship insurer shall only be liable for that part of the loss which is attributable to the perils covered by the insurance.The biggest difference between the apportion rule and the principle,of proximate cause is that the principle of proximate cause should be applied to identify the proximate cause of loss first according to the identification method of proximate cause,but there is no uniform standard for the identification of proximate cause in practice.The application of apportion rules does not need to distinguish the near cause of loss.As long as a certain factor reaches 10%to 15%or more of the cause of the accident,it can be recognized as providing the cause for the occurrence of the accident,so the proportion of the insurer's compensation can be determined.The apportion rule has something in common with the proportion principle in Japan.and the causative.rule in the tort legal relationship,which is to determine the insurer's liability according to the proportion according to the causative force of each factor to the accident.However,the particularity of the sub rule is that it first evaluates the causative force of all factors in the process of loss occurrence,while the proportion principle or the causative rule emphasizes first Find out the near cause of the accident,and then distribute it according to the proportion.Although Chinese law does not clearly provide the principle of proximate cause,in the past marine insurance practice,the principle of proximate cause was basically used to determine the causality of marine insurance accidents and the insurer's liability for compensation.However,in the judicial practice in the recent years,the jurisprudence of the insurer according to the proportion of the liability for compensation has gradually appeared.To a certain extent,it has absorbed the principles stated in the distribution rules,the principle of proportion and the reasons,and balanced the interests of the insurer and the insured.There are some reasonable aspects.,The purpose of this article is to clarify how to determine the liability of a marine insurer under mixed damage.The article is divided into five chapters.The first chapter is an overview of damage caused by mixed causes,which mainly summarizes the types of causes of insurance accidents and the different situations of damage caused by mixed causes.The second chapter analyzes how the principle of proximate cause under British law determines the liability of the marine insurer under mixed causes from the perspective of theory and judicial practice,and evaluates it from the perspective of balance of interests and policy considerations.The third chapter discusses how domination rules and distribution rules under Norwegian law determine the liability of ship insurers under mixed causes.The fourth chapter mainly discusses how to deal with this problem in the past and the development trend in recent years from the perspective of judicial practice in China.In the last chapter,the author creatively puts forward the methods that can be used for reference when dealing with this problem in the future,and puts forward the improvement suggestions on the existing controversial issues.