Insurance Policy in UK Law

It has long been accepted that this is not a literalist exercise focused solely on a parsing of the wording of the particular clause but that the court must consider the contract as a whole and, depending on the nature, formality and quality of drafting of the contract, give more or less weight to elements of the wider context in reaching its view as to that objective meaning.

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.

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.

An exclusion clause must be read in the context of the contract of insurance as a whole. It must be construed in a manner which is consistent with and not repugnant to the purpose of the insurance contract. There may be circumstances in which in order to achieve that end, the court may construe the exclusions in an insurance contract narrowly.

He is under a disability precluding him from imposing a claim. This difference is important, because if the policy of insurance should come, by assignment or otherwise, into the hands of a person who is not affected by the disability, then such a person can enforce the policy according to its terms, see Cleaver v. Mutual Reserve Fund Life Association, 1892, 1 Queen's Bench, p. 147, and Beresford v. Royal Insurance Co., 1938 Appeal Cases at p. 600.

It must, I think, be wide enough to cover, in general terms, any use by him of the vehicle, be it an innocent use or a criminal use, or be it a murderous use or a playful use. The consequences are then these: If the motorist is guilty of a crime involving a wicked anddeliberate intent, and he is made to pay damages to an injured person, he is not himself entitled to recover on the policy.