ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the law relating to marine insurance brokers in England and Wales, Australia, and the USA. The fluid and ambiguous role of brokers is well known, as is the possibility for conflicts of interest, given that the broker acts as agent for the assured but is paid by the insurer. Less well known is the fact that the common law rules about the relationship between the broker and the assured (including the rules about conflict of interest) have been modified by legislation both in England and Wales, and in Australia. The legislative changes reflect the fact that brokers are now regulated by financial services authorities (the FCA in the UK and ASIC in Australia). Similarly, several American states have enacted model legislation dealing specifically with brokers’ conflicts of interest. Much attention was paid to the changes made by the Insurance Act 2015 (UK) to the law relating to pre-contractual disclosures, but the subsequent dearth of cases about non-disclosure may be as attributable to the changes in the law relating to brokers as to the act of 2015 itself.
