The Law Of Insurance Warranties

The book provides a detailed review of efforts to reform the law on insurance warranties in Australia, New Zealand and the UK, arguing that none of these have been successful. The text proposes a radical new approach to reform of this area of the law, demonstrating through detailed stress testing of these proposals that they would deliver more consistent and equitable outcomes than those achieved to date. Reform of the historically inequitable law of insurance warranties in commercial insurance has been introduced in Australia, New Zealand and, most recently, the UK. This book demonstrates that all these reforms have flaws and that none of them can be relied upon to deliver consistently equitable and predictable outcomes; in particular the UK’s, as yet largely untested, Insurance Act 2015 is shown to have serious flaws that have not previously been identified. Building on lessons from these three jurisdictions, the book sets out an alternative approach for dealing with breaches of insurance warranties and demonstrates that this would consistently deliver better outcomes than any of the existing attempts at reforming this area of the law. Providing an unprecedented multi-jurisdictional review of the law on insurance warranties and in particular the treatment of warranties in the Insurance Act 2015, as well as outlining an innovative and radical alternative approach to reform, the book will be of considerable interest and value to practitioners, academics and students, as well as to other common law jurisdictions contemplating reform of this area of the law.

For centuries, warranties have played a significant role in the law of marine insurance and have recently sparked debate on a national and international level after calls for reform. This second edition includes a more involved analysis of law reform as well as a discussion of the recent proposals of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Soyer lucidly analyzes the legal remedy available when a marine insurance warranty is breached as well as setting out the current law on marine insurance warranties. This new edition also includes: a new section on the impact of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) reference to numerous decisions recently handed down by the courts eg. HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd. v. New Hampshire Co. and Agapitos v. Agnew (No. 2) a more in-depth discussion of the position in other commonwealth jurisdictions, specially Australia and Canada.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

For centuries, warranties have played a significant role in the law of marine insurance and have recently sparked debate on a national and international level after calls for reform. This second edition includes a more involved analysis of law reform as well as a discussion of the recent proposals of the Australian Law Reform Commission. Soyer lucidly analyzes the legal remedy available when a marine insurance warranty is breached as well as setting out the current law on marine insurance warranties. This new edition also includes: a new section on the impact of the International Ship and Port Facility Security Code (ISPS Code) reference to numerous decisions recently handed down by the courts eg. HIH Casualty and General Insurance Ltd. v. New Hampshire Co. and Agapitos v. Agnew (No. 2) a more in-depth discussion of the position in other commonwealth jurisdictions, specially Australia and Canada.

This joint discussion paper covers the following issues: the business insured's duty of disclosure, and the law of warranties. Under current law, a business policyholder has a duty to disclose every material circumstance it knows about the risk it wants to insure. Failure to do so entitles the insurer to avoid the contract, which means the insurer may treat it as if it did not exist and refuse all claims. The duty is unclear and sometimes poorly understood, while the consequence of breach is too harsh. The proposals aim to clarify how policyholders are expected to comply with the duty when presenting a risk to insurers and to encourage insurers to assist them in that task. Fairer remedies for breach where the policyholder has not been dishonest., are proposed. An insurance warranty is an important term which, unless exactly complied with by the policyholder, results in the automatic discharge of the insurer's liability for loss. It makes no difference if the breach is trivial, not material to the risk or if the policyholder remedies the breach prior to loss being incurred.The Commissions propose that breach of a warranty should suspend the insurer's liability for the duration of the breach; remedy of the breach restores liability. Where a term is designed to reduce a particular type of risk, liability should only be suspended in relation to that risk. This would be mandatory for consumer insurance but subject to freedom to contract for business insurance.