On The Unfavorable Interpretation Principle In The Insurance Contracts

Unfavorable interpretation principle in the insurance clauses plays an irreplaceable role. Although it has so much importance, but its application is not mature in the judicial practice in our country. Since the unfavorable interpretation principle is introduced into our insurance law, the case of this principle applied happens ceaselessly. However, as the cases increasing, the problems of applying the unfavorable interpretation principle also are increasingly apparent. This article is aimed at arising problems of our country court in the application of this principle. Through the method of statistical analysis and combining some foreign beneficial practice, hoping to play a bit role in the judicial practice in our country on this principle correctly applied. This paper is mainly divided into three parts.The first part mainly discusses the connotation and theoretical basis of unfavorable interpretation principle in the insurance contract. The introduction of connotation on the unfavorable interpretation principle is mainly divided into three aspects:the negative meaning of the unfavorable interpretation principle in ancient law; the negative meaning and the historical background in modern civil law; its negative meaning in the insurance law. Unfavorable interpretation principle of the theoretical basis has three main stories:’the theory on protection of vulnerable groups’,’the theory of technical’,’the theory of standard contracts’, it mentioned ’the theory of satisfying reasonable expectation’at last. The goal of introducing the content is for the back of after content.The second part mainly elaborates what problems our courts have, when they apply to interpretation principle in the insurance contract dispute. This part is the main part of this paper, but also it is different with other articles. The differences are mainly embodied in the research method, this part mainly is through to statistical analysis related cases really happened in our country, find out the problem of applicable premise, terms and other aspects in the application of the unfavorable interpretation principle. Among them, inaccurately grasping the principles applicable premise and expanding the scope of terms is the main problem. And the essence of these two problems is that our courts did not distinguish the meaning of’controversy’and’ambiguity’, did not clear the boundary of’format clause’and’nonstandard terms’. In addition, as the legislative change, from’2009insurance law’, the problem of expanding the scope has been improved to a certain extent. The court is basic able to discriminate between special terms and format in terms of the controversy. But about the applicable premise of principle, the legislation of our country amendment’insurance law’ without any change in this respect two times, naturally our court improper practices in the respect have not been corrected. According to the academic point of view, we must be care of the sequence and object in the application of the unfavorable interpretation principle. I think main reason of problem of the application order is not grasping the premise of the principle accurately enough. This paper did not discuss sequence problem on applying the unfavorable interpretation principle. As for object problem of applying the unfavorable interpretation principle, due to it is difficult to grasp the contracting ability of the policy holder or the insured in China’s judicial practice and the insurance company is not developed enough in our country, the problem is not too important, so this paper did not discuss the problem too much.The third part mainly puts forward some suggestions to the problems of applying unfavorable interpretation principle mentioned in the second part. The suggestions are divided into two respects of judicial and legislative. Justice:our courts should make clear the nature of the unfavorable interpretation principle and ’ambiguity’; and applying the unfavorable interpretation principle after effective application of other methods of interpretation. Legislation:the’controversy’ should be changed to’ambiguity’, when we revise our’insurance law’again.