On 22 April, the 22nd lecture of Weibo Law Lecture Hall was held in Wuhan University Law School. Liu Xuesheng, Secretary of the Party Committee of Hubei Regulatory Bureau of China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, was invited to give the lecture on the theme of "The Basic Concept of Insurance Law". The lecture was hosted by Prof. Qin Qianhong of Wuhan University Law School, Prof. Wen Shiyang of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Prof. Wu Yiwen of Wuhan University Law School, Prof. Feng Guo and Prof. Luo Kun of Wuhan University Law School and other teachers and students were present.
Prof. Qin firstly expressed his warm welcome to the arrival of Director Liu, and introduced the guest speakers. Afterwards, the 22nd lecture of Weibo Law Lecture Hall was officially opened. Mr. Liu expressed his gratitude to the Wuhan University School of Law for the kind invitation and summarized and elaborated on the basic concepts of insurance law by combining his personal working experience and research thinking.
Firstly, Director Liu introduced the structure of the insurance law. He pointed out that our insurance law adopts a model of consolidated legislation, which has both advantages and disadvantages. On one side of the disadvantage is that the combined legislation will result in conflicting legislative techniques, misunderstanding in its application effect and lag in responding to realistic needs.
Secondly, Director Liu proposed that the analysis should be conducted from the foundational concepts of insurance law and the characteristics of the industry system and mechanism behind insurance. He summarized the five foundational concepts of insurance law, including community of hazard, moral hazard prevention, balance of consideration, protection of vulnerability, and fulfilling the function of insurance.
Finally, Director Liu analyzed the issue of whether an insurance company should be fully or partially liable for an insurance accident that occurs during the period between the time the policyholder pays the premium and the time the insurer agrees to underwrite or issue the policy, demonstrating the use of insurance law thinking.
During the talk session, Prof. Wen and Prof. Wu provided in-depth comments on the lecture. Prof. Wen believed that, firstly, the inconvenience of our combined legislative model is that the study of insurance contract law and insurance industry law is relatively fragmented, but the convenience is that insurance law provides the overall legislation in the field, which in a sense saves legislative and teaching resources. In addition, China regulates marine insurance through the Maritime Law and land insurance through the Insurance Law, resulting in a dichotomy of insurance contract law, which draws on different legal systems and may also be in conflict, which may be an important direction for future reform and improvement of the insurance rule of law. Secondly, the five foundational concepts of Director Liu may not be juxtaposed, but rather there is a certain hierarchy. In conclusion, he said that Director Liu had provided inspiration for our thinking by using case studies and specific questions to validate the underlying concepts.
According to Prof. Wu, firstly, the codification style of insurance law is more practical and has a weaker concept of the system, so there is not much of a problem with the merger of the two laws. Secondly, he expressed strong agreement with the underlying philosophy of insurance law. Insurance contracts are in fact joining a community of hazards. There is not yet a unified idea within the academic community as to whether the balance of consideration can be applied as a principle, and he hopes that this will one day be reflected. Vulnerability protection is an original system in China, but there is a disconnect between legislation and practice. There needs to be a limit to the protection of vulnerable groups that is in line with the reality of our country.
During the interactive session, Director Liu responded to the questions raised by the students, such as "whether the list of basic concepts is exhaustive and systematic", "whether there is a hierarchy between basic concepts and how to resolve conflicts if they occur", and "how to protect vulnerable groups to the extent possible from legislation and practice". At the end of the lecture, Prof. Qin spoke highly of the quality of the lecture and once again expressed his gratitude to Director Liu and Prof. Wen and Prof. Wu, as well as the teachers and students in attendance. The 22nd lecture of Weibo Law Lecture hall came to an end amidst the warm applause of the audience.
Edited by Yuan Yuhang & Wu Liuqing
