Insurance Contracts CP - Law Reform Commission

11
CHAPTER 11
PROVISIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
The provisional recommendations made in this Consultation Paper may be summarised as follows.
Chapter 1 – Regulatory Context
11.01 The Commission provisionally recommends that regulatory bodies (in particular the Financial
Regulator and the National Consumer Agency) who currently have statutory responsibilities in connection
with the insurance industry should continue to liaise with each other, and with representatives of the
insurance industry, in order to develop comprehensive statutory Codes of Practice setting out standards
of best practice, building on the best practice standards developed by the Irish Insurance Federation and
on the statutory model of the Financial Regulator‘s Consumer Protection Code 2012. The Commission
also provisionally recommends that these statutory Codes of Practice should form the basis for the
content of insurance contracts. [Paragraph 1.68]
11.02 The Commission provisionally recommends that legislation should provide that in any litigation
or other dispute resolution process statutory Codes of Practice setting out standards of best practice
should be admissible in evidence; and that, if any provision of such Code is relevant to a question arising
in the litigation or other dispute resolution process, the provision may be taken into account in determining
that question, but that this would be without prejudice to the substantive rights between the parties.
[Paragraph 1.69]
11.03 The Commission provisionally recommends that the legislative framework being proposed in
this Consultation Paper should, in general, apply to consumers as defined for the purposes of the
jurisdiction of the Financial Services Ombudsman, namely natural persons and businesses with an
annual turnover not exceeding €3 million. [Paragraph 1.70]
Chapter 2 – Insurable Interest
11.04 The Commission provisionally recommends that legislation should provide that an otherwise
valid insurance claim cannot be rejected by the insurer solely because the insured lacks an insurable
interest as it has been traditionally defined, that is, a legal or equitable relationship between the insured
and the subject matter of the insurance contract. [Paragraph 2.60]
11.05 The Commission provisionally recommends that insurable interest should, in the interests of
certainty, be more broadly defined in legislation as an interest that subsists when a person may benefit
from the continued existence or safekeeping of the subject matter of the insurance or may be prejudiced
by its loss; and that this definition would apply both to non-life insurance (in particular property and liability
insurance) and to life insurance. [Paragraph 2.61]
11.06 The Commission provisionally recommends the repeal of the Life Assurance Act 1774, as
extended to Ireland by the Life Insurance (Ireland) Act 1866. [Paragraph 2.67]
11.07 The Commission invites submissions as to whether, on the issue of valuation, an insurer
should be free to fix any value with the proposer at the time of concluding the policy of insurance.
[Paragraph 2.86]
11.08 The Commission provisionally recommends that, in connection with life insurance, the following
should also be deemed to have an insurable interest in the life policy: (a) spouses in relation to each
other; (b) civil partners in relation to each other; (c) cohabitants in relation to each other; (d) a child in
relation to his or her parent or guardian; and (e) a parent or guardian in relation to his or her dependent
adult child. [Paragraph 2.97]
221