Here is your free sample essay on Marine Insurance

Marine insurance business is carried on by private parties and by insurance com­panies. Individual insurers trade, of course, on their own responsibility and capital, or on that of the parties they represent, and may therefore be considered less safe than joint-stock companies, which dispose of larger capitals.

Private insurance is, notwithstanding, carried on in England on a very extensive scale, owing chiefly both to its offering better conditions to the trade, and to the well-known soundness and com­mercial integrity of the insuring parties.

Private insurers usually join into associations for the sake of mutual help and protection, and also for the purpose of adopting general and uniform rules in the transaction of insurance business.

Many such asso­ciations are flourishing in the principal sea-ports, but the greatest institution of the kind is the London Corporation of Lloyd’s, whose influence in the shipping trade is felt all over the world, and whose name, adopted abroad by many other corporate bodies de­voted to insurance and navigation, has now become synonymous with maritime business.

A contract of insurance is effected through an instrument called the policy: life policy for life insurance; fire policy, for fire insurance; marine policy, for marine insurance.

Every maritime nation has its particular form of marine policy, agreed upon by the community of insurers, the conditions whereof form the basis of almost every contract of insurance.

Some foreign maritime communities have adopted a different policy for insurance either on hull or on goods, but English insurers generally abide by Lloyd’s policy, the wording of which is adapted to both cases.

A contract of insurance is always effected on a printed form of the policy, in which all the usual con­ditions are already put down, and blank spaces left to be filled up in writing with the names of the parties, the description of the risk, etc.

The printed words, being common to all such forms, may be blotted out when not suiting the case, while the written terms constitute the peculiar conditions of a particular contract, and are, therefore, of a greater weight than the printed part.

Parties to the Policy.-

The parties concerned in a marine insurance policy are the insured: the owner of the thing covered by insurance, and the insurer ; the latter being also called the underwriter when he has subscribed the policy, because, being the sole party bound by the policy, he alone need sign his name at the foot of the document.

Almost every insurance company usually has an officer specially appointed and empowered to under­write policies in the company’s name, who is likewise called the underwriter.

Requisites of the Policy.-

A complete marine in­surance policy should bear on its face-

(a) The name of the assured or his agent.

(b) The name of the vessel insured, or upon which the goods insured are shipped.

(c) The particulars of the subject of the insurance.

(d) The risks against which the insurance is made.

(e) The voyage during which the subject of the insurance is to be covered, or the time when the risk is to begin and when to cease.

(f) The rate of premium paid, or to be paid, by the assured.

(g) The date of subscription.

(h) The underwriter’s signature, or that of his agent July authorized.

Some of these requisites are, however, dispensed with in certain special forms of policies, adopted by general use, and hereinafter described.

Condition of Validity of Policy

According to English law a policy of insurance is not valid unless the party insured has an insurable interest in the subject matter of the insurance, which interest must be proved in case of loss under the policy.

Such contracts of insurance are, therefore, null and void of any legal effect, though they may bind the parties in honour, as, being the result of mere bets, and not of real insurance transactions, do not state the insured party’s interest in the subject matter of the insurance.

They are known in trade as wager policies, and usually bear the clause: interest or no interest-policy proof of interest, or any other to the same effect, by which it is intended that, by the agreement entered upon by both parties, the loss of the subject matter of ^fhe insurance entitles the insured to be paid, although he had no interest in the adventure, and has, therefore, suffered no damage by the loss.

The most direct proofs of interest are, of course, the documents relating to the subject matter of the insur­ance, such as invoices, or bills of lading, for the cargo, ^0r any separate parcel thereof; certificate of registry, for the ship; charter party, or bills of lading, f_0r freight.

Others, however, may also be available, according to the peculiar kind of interest possessed by the hold of the policy at the time when the loss insured again^ takes place.