Insurance Duty Of Disclosure

The obligation of disclosure is that the policy-holders and the insureds should tell the insurers the important things according to the facts about the insurance objects when making the insurance contracts.This obligation is the important part of principle of the utmost good-faith which also exists in our Law of Insurance. It is also an important obligation for the policy-holders and insureds when putting forward an insurance claim. The Law of Insurance has the relevant prescriptions. To comprehend and grasp this obligation correctly is important for safeguarding the insurers and insureds'rights.The reason for setting this obligation is that only the policy-holders or insureds are familiar with the truth about the insurance objects.The insurers determine whether accept an insurance claim and the rate of the insurance fee by the disclosure of the policy-holders and insureds. The policy-holders and insureds would undertake unfavorable aftermaths if they violate this obligation.There are some defects about this obligation in our Law of Insurance. For example, the subject of disclosure obligation shall be extended to the insureds; there exists confused criterion when judging the important things; the performation of the right to terminate a contract has some ambiguities under different subjective mentality; there is a gap about the deadline of the performation of the right to terminate a contract;there is no use setting the clause of returning the insurance fee.The issues about this obligation in practise reflect not only above aspects but also some questions in applying the Clause 17 of Law of Insurance.Herein the rising trend about the dissension aiming at this obligation in insurance affairs,the paper made a deep analysis about its character, legislation basis, basic elements, composing of disobeying it and the law aftermaths according to the reference about related foreign and home legislation and correlative cases,emphasizing the criterion of judging the important things and some about the performation of the right to terminate a contract which are both referred to frequently in the insurance issues .The paper also puts forward some advice about how to perfect the system of the obligation of disclosure in our Insurance Law.