A step in the right direction

The Insurance Bill introduced to Parliament last week updates some important elements of insurance law—currently set out in the Marine Insurance Act 1906 (MIA 1906), which embodies principles developed in the 18th and 19th centuries. Existing legislation is outdated and does not reflect the commercial expectations of many businesses seeking to buy insurance. This frequently leads to disputes between insurers and policyholders, causing delay, expense and uncertainty. Policyholders cannot always predict whether their insurer will pay out or rely on technical legal arguments to deny claims, which increases the likelihood of policyholders buying insurance based on price alone. This could reduce the quality of insurance products available on the market, which has the potential to undermine the reputation of one of the UK’s leading industries.

The changes the government is introducing mean that British insurers are better equipped to compete against their global competitors, some of whom have already introduced more modern legal regimes for insurance,