Insurance

Abstract

This chapter highlights insurance law. One of the central principles of the New Private Law is that legal doctrine should be taken seriously. In insurance law, a corollary of that principle would seem to be that legal doctrine should take insurance policy language seriously. Insurance law and insurance law scholarship are largely—though not always—consistent with both the principle and its corollary. A contrasting view is that insurance law doctrine is, or should be, a vehicle for covert judicial regulation of insurance, for the purpose of policyholder protection or in order to promote more risk-spreading generally. This view can be called the “regulatory” conception of insurance law. Insurance law is not only a combination of common law doctrines and federal and state legislative and administrative directives. Insurance law also consists heavily of judicial interpretations of standard-form insurance policy language that has persisted unchanged for so long that the interpretations have the same practical effect as common law doctrines. These interpretations are so heavily anchored to the language of standard-form insurance policies that they are the locus of most insurance coverage disputes. The chapter then looks at the insurance application process; the insurance contract formation and interpretation; the general principles regarding the risks insured; the coordination of insurance coverage; and the remedies for breach of an insurance contract.