Study On The Application Of Punitive Damages For Insurance Operator Fraud

With the rapid development of our insurance market,the dispute of insurance consumption is growing increasingly,and the issue of how to protect the legal rights and interests of insurance consumers has gradually attracted people’s attention.The complexity and professionalism of insurance products make insurance consumers always in an inferior position compared with operators.Under the background of the growing insurance market and the growing insurance consumer groups,it is difficult for insurance consumers to obtain comprehensive and effective protection due to lack of clear and definite legal status.Thus,it is very urgent and necessary to conduct a detailed study on the protection of insurance consumers’ rights and interests.In the chapter of Obligations of Operators,the new law on consumer protection clarifies for the first time the concept of “operators”,which refers to all the operators from securities,banking,insurance and other financial services,which provides a legal basis for consumers to claim punitive damages when they encounter fraud.However,in judicial practice,whether and how to apply the provisions of punitive damages to insurance consumption are still controversial,and courts in different regions and at different levels have different understandings and judgments.The inconsistency of the judgment standards and measures of similar cases will inevitably lead to the incomprehension and disapproval of the participants in the proceedings,and damage the authority and fairness of the law.There are three main obstacles in the application of punitive damages system to insurance operator fraud: the vague legal concept of insurance consumers,the unclear identification path of operator fraud,and the lack of standards for the calculation base of punitive damages.Through the theoretical and case analysis of the United States and Chinese Taiwan,this paper summarizes the enlightenment of extraterritorial experiences to the application of our system,and puts forward some suggestions to improve the application of punitive damages to insurance operator fraud.This paper argues that insurance consumers belong to the“consumers” who need to be protected by the law and who have the legal rights to claim punitive damages.The identification of insurance operator fraud should follow the standard of four elements,namely,the insurance operator’s subjective intention,the insurance operator’s fraud in providing insurance services,the insurance consumer’s wrong judgment due to the operator’s fraud,and the insurance consumer’s declaration of intention based on the wrong judgment.On the premise of the establishment of insurance operator fraud,the calculation base of punitive damages should be recognized as “surrender loss”.