Insurance in UK Law

The statutory prohibitions are designed to protect the insured by seeking to ensure that undesirable persons are not authorised to carry on insurance business and that authorised insurers remain solvent. Good public policy and common sense therefore require that contracts of insurance, even if made by unauthorised insurers, should not be invalidated.

It may well be that, when two persons are jointly insured and their interests are inseparably connected so that a loss or gain necessarily affects them both, the misconduct of one is sufficient to contaminate the whole insurance ( Phillips on Marine Insurance, vol.

It seems to me that the insured only acquires a right to sue for the money when his liability to the injured person has been established so as to give rise to a right of indemnity. His liability to the injured person must be ascertained and determined to exist, either by judgment of the Court or by an award in an arbitration or by agreement. Until thatis done, the right to an indemnity does not arise.

Under the section it is clear to me that the injured person cannot sue the Insurance Company except in such circumstances as the insured himself could have sued the Insurance Company. The insured could only have sued for an indemnity when his liability to the third person was established and the amount of the loss ascertained. In some circumstances the insured might sue earlier for a declaration, e.g. if the insured company were repudiating the policy for some reason.

It is quiteunheard of in practice for any assured to sue his insurers in a money claim when the actual loss against which he wishes to be indemnified has not been ascertained, I have never heard of such an action and there is nothing in law that makes such an action possible.

These authorities confirm that the rights which the Insurance Company has acquired are rights which are subject to the arbitration clause. Likewise, the Insurance Company is not entitled to assert its claim inconsistently with the terms of the contract. One of the terms of the contract is that, in the event of dispute, the claim must be referred to arbitration. The Insurance Company is not entitled to enforce its right without also recognising the obligation to arbitrate.

In my judgment, the effect of a clause binding reinsurers to follow settlements of the insurers, is that the reinsurers agree to indemnify insurers in the event that they settle a claim by their assured, i.e. when they dispose, or bind themselves to dispose, of a claim, whether by reason of admission or compromise, provided that the claim so recognised by them falls within the risks covered by the policy of reinsurance as a matter of law, and provided also that in settling the claim the insurers have acted honestly and have taken all proper and businesslike steps in making the settlement.