Research On The Informative Obligation Of Risk Increases In The Insurance Law

The informative obligation of risk increases(hereinafter “the obligation”) refers that if the risk of the subject matter insured has greatly increased during the course of insurance contract performance, the applicant or the insurant should inform the risk increase to the insurer rapidly. The obligation is an important measure taken by insurer for controlling risk and maintaining the risk pool. The author adopted the method of comparative analysis to illustrate the basic theory of the obligation, whilst compared the different opinions of scholars, pointed out the improvement in the current law and gave some suggestions to perfect provision on the obligation in Chinese Insurance Law.Besides the preface and the conclusion, there are four chapters in the dissertation:Chapter One is about the theoretical basis of the obligation. In this part, firstly, the author discussed the legal principle basis of the obligation. Secondly, the author introduced the basis of the obligation from the aspect of economics. Thirdly, the author analyzed the obligation’s legal nature.Chapter Two is about the scope of application of the obligation. The applicant or the insurant fulfills the obligation when he informs the matter which he knew of or should have known of, resulting to the singnificent increase in insurance subject to the insurer. In the process of determining whether the danger increases significently, it is advisable to combine the substantial judgement method and formal ones. Meanwhile, the author pointed out four different standards: the actual insurant, the actual insurer, the prudent insurer and the reasonalble insurant. The reasonable insurant standard is more suitable for the Chinease courts.Chapter Three defines who will go to perform the obligation and the legal consequences of performing or breaching the obligation. According to the Insurance Law, the insurant should inform the risk increase to the insurer rapidly, while the applicant only has to perform the obligation when the insurance contract required that. The causation between the risk increase and the behavior of the insurant is out of the constitutive requirements of the obligation. So is the causation between the risk increase and the insurance accident.The novel places in this paper are as follows: firstly, the obligation is illustrated very systematically and completely; secondly, some new opinions or ideas are raised, such as whether the Utmost Good Faith Principle and the Change of Circumstances Principle are the legal basis of the obligation, judgment standard of the scope of application of the obligation and the legal consequences and so on.