Reinsurance in UK Law

Leading Cases
  • Insurance Company of Africa v Scor (UK) Reinsurance Company Ltd
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 22 November 1984

    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.

  • Forsikringsaktieselskapet Vesta v Butcher and Others (First Appeal)
    • House of Lords
    • 26 January 1989

    By the reinsurance policy, the underwriters promised that if Vesta became liable for a loss under the insurance policy, then the underwriters would make good 90 per cent. The effect of a warranty in the reinsurance policy is governed by the effect of the warranty in the insurance poliicy because the reinsurance policy is a contract by the underwriters to indemnify Vesta against liability under the insurance policy.

    A reinsurer could, of course, make a special contract with an insurer and agree only to reinsure some of the risks covered by the policy of insurance, leaving the insurer to bear the full cost of the other risks. Such a contract would I believe be wholly exceptional, a departure from the normal understanding of the back-to-back nature of reinsurance and would require to be spelt out in clear terms.

  • Assicurazioni Generali SpA v CGU International Insurance Plc and Others
    • Queen's Bench Division (Commercial Court)
    • 02 May 2003

    The Defendants are bound by all settlements made by Generali (except ex gratia and without prejudice settlements) (a) provided that the claims so recognised by Generali fall within the risks covered by the contract of reinsurance as a matter of law: by which is meant in this context as explained above, provided that the claims were settled on a basis which, if and assuming it to be valid, falls within the risks covered by Generali's outward contract of reinsurance as a matter of law; and (b) provided that Generali acted honestly and took all proper and businesslike steps in making such settlements.

  • Assicurazioni Generali SpA v CGU International Insurance Plc and Others
    • Court of Appeal (Civil Division)
    • 06 April 2004

    It gives substance to the fact that the reinsurer cannot require the insurer to prove that the assured's claim was in fact covered by the original policy, but requires him to show that the basis on which he settled it was one which fell within the terms of the reinsurance as a matter of law or arguably did so. This and the need for the insurer to have acted honestly and taken all reasonable and proper steps in settling the claim provide adequate protection for the reinsurer.

  • Axa Reinsurance (UK) Plc v Field
    • House of Lords
    • 20 June 1996

    In ordinary speech, an event is something which happens at a particular time, at a particular place, in a particular way. A cause is to my mind something altogether less constricted. It can be a continuing state of affairs; it can be the absence of something happening. Equally, the word "originating" was in my view consciously chosen to open up the widest possible search for a unifying factor in the history of the losses which it is sought to aggregate.

  • Charter Reinsurance Company Ltd v Fagan
    • House of Lords
    • 22 May 1996

    It is an independent contract between reinsured and reinsurer in which the subject-matter of the insurance is the same as that of the primary insurance, that is to say, the risk to the ship or goods or whatever might be insured. The difference lies in the nature of the insurable interest, which in the case of the primary insurer, arises from his liability under the original policy: see Buckley L.J. in British Dominions General Insurance Co. Ltd. v. Duder [1915] 2 K.B. 394, 400.

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Books & Journal Articles
  • The Construction of Terms of Facultative Reinsurance Contracts: is Wasa v Lexington the Exception or the Rule?
    • No. 73-1, January 2010
    • The Modern Law Review
    Do reinsurers insure the liability faced by the reinsured under its original insurance contract? Where the reinsurance and direct insurance policies are written in identical terms, is it enough for...
  • Handling conflicts of interest within financial innovation. The case of regulation and supervision of Bermuda sidecars
    • No. 16-4, October 2009
    • Journal of Financial Crime
    • 353-363
    Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the experience of a financial services regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), in identifying and dealing with conflicts of interest in in...
    ... ... in different financial sectors.For example, the past 12 years have witnessed a steady growth in cross-sectoral risktransfer between reinsurance and capital markets (Cummins, 2008). Novel , and morecomplex, inter-relations have a wide variety of consequences. On the one hand, forexample, they ... ...
  • Managing Risk as a Duality of Harm and Benefit: A Study of Organizational Risk Objects in the Global Insurance Industry
    • No. 32-1, January 2021
    • British Journal of Management
    This study examines how organizations construct and manage risk objects as a duality of harm–benefit within their normal operations. It moves beyond the existing focus on accidents, disasters and c...
    ... ... navigate the tension of retaining risk in their insurance portfolio to increasethe benefit of making profit and transferring risk to reinsurance to reduce the harm of paying claims. We showthat organizations’ constructions of risk are underpinned by everydayrisk man- agement practices of ... ...
  • Risk, insurance and small farm credit in developing countries: A policy proposal
    • No. 6-3, July 1986
    • Public Administration and Development
    Lending to small farmers is often too risky for commercial banks; consequently extremely high interest rates have to be paid. Agricultural development banks go some way towards solving the problem....
    ... ... The practical problems of implementation are considered and deemed surmountable by reinsurance and graduated premiums. THE PROBLEM It is a truth universally acknowledged that credit markets in underdeveloped rural areas ... ...
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Law Firm Commentaries
  • March 2017 Reinsurance Newsletter
    • LexBlog United Kingdom
    This quarter’s Squire Patton Boggs Reinsurance Newsletter focuses on the certified question sent to the New York Court of Appeals by the Second Circuit on Bellefonte. It also features regulatory up...
  • Parallel Reinsurance
    • Mondaq UK
  • Insurance and Reinsurance Update
    • JD Supra United Kingdom
    This is our pick of the key recent legal and regulatory issues affecting the insurance and reinsurance sector. Non Party PI Insurers Liable for Costs - In the January 2019 case of Various Cl...
  • Reinsurance Implications of FCA Test Case
    • JD Supra United Kingdom
    Insurers seem confident that reinsurers will take their share of the impact of the Court’s judgment. So what are the immediate reinsurance issues arising from the decision?
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Forms
  • Lloyd's Estate form of witness statement
    • HM Courts & Tribunals Service court and tribunal forms
    Chancery forms, including claim forms and applications for orders.
    ... ... There is now produced and shown to us marked “      .2” a copy of the certificate or statement of reinsurance into Equitas] ... 3.2  [The syndicates in which the Deceased participated in the years of account 1993 and later have [closed by reinsurance ... ...
  • Order for distribution of a Lloyd's Estate
    • HM Courts & Tribunals Service court and tribunal forms
    Chancery forms, including claim forms and applications for orders.
    ... ... and income in accordance with such trusts] without making any retention or further provision in respect of any contract of insurance or reinsurance underwritten by the Deceased in the course of his business as an underwriting member of Lloyd’s of London ... (2) the costs of the Claimants of ... ...
  • sheet
    • HM Courts & Tribunals Service court and tribunal forms
    Commercial Court forms including claims and application notices.
    ... ...  general commercial contracts and arrangements, including agency ...  agreements ...  insurance and/or reinsurance ...  oil and gas and other natural resources ...  physical commodity trading ...  professional negligence claims ...  provision ... ...
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