The law commission is an independent, publicly funded, central advisory body established by statute to undertake the systematic review, reform and development of the law of new zealand. Its purpose is to help achieve law that is just, principled, and accessible, and that reflects the heritage and aspirations of the peoples of new zealand. the commissioners are: honourable justice grant hammond ndash president national library of new zealand cataloguing in publication data court jurisdiction, trading trusts and other issues electronic resource. This essay is an analysis of the law commission’s, issues paper published periodically. The law commission has adopted various approaches in analyzing the issues from the perspective of consumer and commercial insurance.

This distinction of commercial and consumer insurance is essential in cases of reforming proposals because the issues encountered in each case would be different. The small business group people are also distinguished from large business community. The problems faced by the consumers and the small business group are being the same and normally treated as one while considering the reforms proposals 1 . The small consumers lack specialists knowledge, they may not have the resources to seek outside advice and they do not have the bargaining power to agree on special terms. On the other hand the large insured are better placed and they normally do not face similar problems faced by the consumers. Therefore it is necessary to identify whether small business group, consumers or large business insured are affected by a particular issue in law. This distinction is done for the reason to address the issues that affect the consumers, as it can be remedied better by law commission reform proposals and the corresponding amendments made to the laws which are pointed out in the proposal.

The following are the two issues which mainly concerned about the consumer interest and the reforms proposed to be made will have a great impact protecting the interest of the consumers in the insurance market. In december 2005 the law commission and scottish law commission published a joint scoping paper 2 asking for views of the respondents for the review of the insurance contract law. In the said paper the issue of whether section 83 of the fires prevention metropolis act 1774 should be repealed or not, was included among others. The majority 82% of respondents 92 in total said that section 83 should be part of the review. The law commission’s tentative view was that nothing can be done to the section, but it invited comments from people till june 2009 in this regard. In the introductory paper issued by the commission in march 2009 it had discussed the background object of the section and the purpose and intent to be achieved by it and the current scenario for which the section is actually applied.

Section 83 of the fires prevention metropolis act 1774, herein after referred as the act , deals with the cases wherein the buildings are damaged by fire. The object of the section is to protect the interest of person who is actually affected by the happening of an insured peril. It has to be noted that the person interested need not be the policy holder to claim the amount.

The other mischief sought to be prevented by the section is the fraud committed by people in burning down their building and trying to get benefit out of their own fraud. But at present this section is used to solve the issue of the claim done by a person who is not the policy holder. There are certain situations in which the policy holder and the person suffering loss out of an event may be different.in such circumstances the person interested can directly claim the insurance amount irrespective of the policy holder. In the case of tenancy of a premise the landlord has to take out an insurance policy covering the property from the risk of fire. The tenant will be paying the premium and the policy will be in the name of the landlord.

Codes for Writing on Dirty Paper

If a fire accident takes place then according to normal insurance law it is only the policyholder who has the right to claim the insurance amount. But by virtue of sec 83 of the act, the tenant will be considered as a person interested and he can claim the amount for the purpose of reinstating the damaged property. This concept of interested person is introduced in order to prevent the fraud and arson committed by any person who gets the insurance amount and does not reinstate the property to its original state. Likewise in cases where the landlord has sold the property to a third party and before the completion of the actual sale if fire breaks out then the previous landlord cannot claim the insurance amount and the tenant in the premises who had suffered actual loss can claim under the policy to reinstate the property.

These situations can also be resolved by the agreement between the landlord and tenant but in absence of such clearly drafted agreement sec. It has been pointed out that incase if a landlord is insolvent and if he receives any money out of the policy then it cannot be treated as normal insolvent money and divided among the creditors, as the section gives right to the person interested to claim the amount. Therefore even in case of insolvency, the landlord has to spend the insurance amount only for the purpose of reinstating the property by virtue of sec. The persons interested not only mean the tenant of the property and it also includes the mortgagees 3 . In all these cases the parties are bound by the covenants of the contract entered between them in each particular case and in case if the there is no adequate protection given to the affected party then they can take the recourse of sec. A clear reading of the section is necessary in order to address the issues arising out of the interpretation of the section in particular cases. The plain reading of the section would point out that the object of the section is to prevent fraud on the insurance company and to protect the interest of the persons interested.

For a better understanding the section is divided into parts and discussed below: the first part of the section deals with the aspect of the fraud committed upon the insurance companies by the policy holders who burn down their own premises at the cost of innocent lives and property. In order to prevent the said fraud the section states that the insurer should directly rebuild or reinstate the damaged property instead of paying it to the policy holder. It has been stated that this can be done either upon the request made by the person interested or if the insurer has any suspicion on the policy holder as to whether he is claiming any benefit upon his own fraud. The section also contemplates that the money can be given directly to the policy holder if he provides a security to the insurer, that he will rebuild the property within 60 days from the date of receipt of the claim. It also provides provision to pay the amount to the persons interested than to the policy holder and incase if they are more than one then the amount if be appropriated among them equally based upon their respective shares.

Graduate School Essay Review Service

It is also pertinent note that this section applies only to damages caused by fire and covers only damages caused to the buildings and not to any fixtures of it. 6 likewise the section applies only to insurance companies and not to lloyd’s under writers. 7 the issues arising out interpretation of the section has made the law commission to consider it for review. The commission had pointed out in its introductory paper 8 that the legislators intent was not to give right to a person who is not the policy holder by virtue of this section, but it was thought that it would prevent fraud by policy holders.

Joan Bolker Writing Your Dissertation

This can be understood better by the following cases wherein the section has been applied to protect the interest of the interested person. Black arrow group plc 9 the plaintiffs were the tenants and the defendants were the insurance company and the landlords. Here, under the tenancy agreement there was a clause which contemplated that the landlord has to take out an insurance policy to cover the risk of damage caused to the building by fire and the tenant has to pay an additional rent which will be adjusted as the premium amount. Accordingly, the land lord took out an insurance policy which provided for a reinstatement of the property in case of happening of the peril insured.