On The Ownership Of Personal Insurance Beneficiary’s Decision-making Right

The issue on the decision-making power of personal insurance beneficiary concerns theissue who has the rights to appoint and modify the beneficiary. In spite of some provisions inChina’s insurance legislation, there are some insufficiencies which can not guide legalpractice. Moreover, there is no common recognition in the theoretical field ondecision-making power of the personal insurance beneficiary.The first part is the theoretical analysis of decision-making power of personal insurancebeneficiary. It is necessary to determinate the belonging subject of decision-making power ofpersonal insurance beneficiary which means to effectively solve the collision between theinsurance principle and contract principle in the life insurance contract. In accordance withthe insurance principle,decision-making power of personal insurance beneficiary belongs tothe insured, while based on the contract principle,it belongs to the policy holder.The second part analyses the mode of decision-making power of personal insurancebeneficiary. Logically, there are three modes,i,e. policy holder mode, the insured mode andthe insured and policy holder shared mode. Based on the central point whether we cancoordinate the collision between the insurance principle and contract principle effectively, thisthesis respectively analyses these three modes. It finds none of these three modes caneffectively solve the collision, so they are undesirable.The third part of this thesis proposes a new mode. Based on the shared mode, it creates anew mode,i.e. Decision-making power of personal insurance beneficiary should belong toboth the insured and policy holder and the policy holder owns the rights to appoint andmodify the beneficiary under the condition of the insured’s guarantee. However, it isunreasonable to guarantee the insured’s decision-making power under anycircumstance.Therefore, under some special circumstances, it is necessary to restrict or extendthe power.The fourth part is the institutional perfection in china. The mode of decision-makingpower of personal insurance beneficiary written in the Insurance Law of PRC cannoteffectively coordinate the collision between the insurance principle and contract principle andcannot satisfy the social needs under some special circumstances. Therefore, the proposednew mode should be adopted by the Insurance Law of PRC.