Marine Insurance - Marine Insurance Act, 1906

Marine Insurance Act, 1906

The most important sections of this Act include:

§4: a policy without insurable interest is void.

§17: imposes a duty on the insured of uberrimae fides (as opposed to caveat emptor), i.e., that questions must be answered honestly and the risk not misrepresented.

§18: the proposer of the insurer has a duty to disclose all material facts relevant to the acceptance and rating of the risk. Failure to do so is known as non-disclosure or concealment (there are minor differences in the two terms) and renders the insurance voidable by the insurer.

§33(3): If be not complied with, then, subject to any express provision in the policy, the insurer is discharged from liability as from the date of the breach of warranty, but without prejudice to any liability incurred by him before that date.

§34(2): where a warranty has been broken, it is no defence to the insured that the breach has been remedied, and the warranty complied with, prior to the loss.

§34(3): a breach of warranty may be waived (ignored) by the insurer.

§39(1): implied warranty that the vessel must be seaworthy at the start of her voyage and for the purpose of it (voyage policy only).

§39(5): no warranty that a vessel shall be seaworthy during the policy period (time policy). However if the assured knowingly allows an unseaworthy vessel to set sail the insurer is not liable for losses caused by unseasworthiness.

§50: a policy may be assigned. Typically, a shipowner might assign the benefit of a policy to the ship-mortgagor.

§§60-63: deals with the issues of a constructive total loss. The insured can, by notice, claim for a constructive total loss with the insurer becoming entitled to the ship or cargo if it should later turn up. (By contrast an actual total loss describes the physical destruction of a vessel or cargo.)

§79: deals with subrogation, i.e., the rights of the insurer to stand in the shoes of an indemnified insured and recover salvage for his own benefit.

Schedule 1 of the Act contains a list of definitions; schedule 2 contains the model policy wording.