Review of the Marine Insurance Act 1909 (Cth) (ALRC Report 91)

ALRC Report 91 (tabled May 2001) sets out the results of the Commission’s research and consultations, and its recommendations for amendments to the Marine Insurance Act 1909 (Cth) (MIA) and to the Insurance Contracts Act 1984 (Cth) (ICA).

Four areas came to be of central importance during the course of the review. They are the coverage of the MIA; warranties and other statutory provisions with similar effect; non-disclosure, misrepresentation and the obligations of utmost good faith; and the requirement for an insurable interest. A number of other areas also merited specific attention, notably the documentary requirements set out in the MIA. As required by the terms of reference, the Commission prepared a draft Bill to give effect to the recommendations in this report and an explanatory memorandum to accompany it.

If adopted, the Commission’s recommendations would involve significant amendment to the MIA. However, the Commission anticipates that the impact in practice on Australia’s marine insurance industry would be less than that which the scale of the changes to the wording of the MIA might suggest. The amendments would be made within the existing structure and layout of the MIA, which are familiar to the industry both within Australia and, because of the MIA’s similarity to cognate legislation overseas, in foreign jurisdictions.

View ALRC Report 91 in HTML on the AustLII website.

This publication is available for purchase in book format.