Study On Effectiveness Of The Exemption Clause In Ship Insurance Contract

Ship insurance with a long history and a series of special mature legal systems is the main part of the marine insurance.The two parties’ rights and obligations would be agreed on in the contract.The insurance liability clauses and exemption clauses are the main elements of the ship insurance contract and the basis for the insurer to pay the insurance indemnity and the insurer to obtain compensation.As an insurant,it is generally hoped that all damages and losses of the insured subject matter will be compensated by the insurance company.However,the insurer hoped each compensation to the losses was payed based on the law of large numbers,which should be strictly examined according to the insurance liability and exemption clauses stipulated in the contract.As a result,they would have different opinions from times to times,and even disputes are brought to court.The most typical one is the disputes over the effectiveness of the exemption clause.Before the implementation of the Insurance Law,the causes of ship insurance disputes are more different understandings of the application of exemption clauses.With the successive promulgation and entry into force of the Insurance Law and the Contract Law,both the application and effectiveness of the exemption clause of ship insurance has being questioned by the insurer.The law regulating the relationship between ship insurance contracts is the Maritime Law,while the Maritime Law does not provide for the foregoing regulations and so which should be subject to the application of the Insurance Law.Because the Maritime Law does not provide for the effectiveness of the exemption clause,the judgement to the validity of exemption clause from the Insurance Law is therefore applicable to ship insurance,which has a strong impact on ship insurance.The Insurance Law mainly regulates the general insurance relationship on land.Does its relevant provisions apply to marine insurance and how to use it? It has been a perplexing problem in theory and practice insurance.In this thesis,the validity of the exemption clause in ship insurance contract is discussed.Besides the introduction and conclusions,it is divided into three parts.The first part mainly discusses the concept and scope of the exemption clause of ship insurance.By analyzing the concept and characteristics of ship insurance,and then discussing the uniqueness of the exemption clause,it is concluded that the scope of the exemption clause of ship insurance is different from that of general property insurance in land,which lays a foundation for studying the validity of the exemption clause of ship insurance.The second part mainly discusses the effectiveness of the exemption clause of ship insurance.This part is the main body of this paper,which is divided into three sections.In section I,the article 17 of the Insurance Law on the obligation of procedural regulation is elaborated,that is the first step of the validity judging to the exemption clause,and analyses whether it can be applied to ship insurance at last.It is considered that the provisions of Article 17 of the Insurance Law on the obligation of procedural regulation can not be fully applied to ship insurance due to its specialties.In section II,mainly discusses the relevant provisions of Article 19 of the Insurance Law on the content evaluation of the exemption clause,that is the second step of the validity judging to the exemption clause,which should be carried out from the legal and reasonable perspectives in the light of the specific attributes of ship insurance,otherwise it will easily lead marine insurance to be judged as general property insurance in land.In section III,discusses and analyzes the validity forms of the exemption clauses of ship insurance,and holds that the exemption clauses only have two forms: valid and invalid.The third part puts forward some suggestions on marine insurance legislation on the basis of the first two parts,including defining clearly the scope of the exemption clause of the ship insurance contract,the relevant requirements of the Procedural Regulation of the exemption clause of the marine insurance contract and content evaluation.