ABSTRACT
Just like German law, in Norway the conditions for marine insurance traditionally have been incorporated into extensive private codifications, which are published as Norwegian Marine Insurance Plans (NMIP).50 These plans routinely override the provisions of public legislation, apart from the ones which are mandatory. The main public legislation dealing with insurance law is the Insurance Contracts Act (ICA) 1989. This Act is compulsory, but s 1(3), sub-para 2, allows insurance of commercial activity performed by ships which have to be registered according to the Maritime Code of 1994, or commercial activity dealing with international trade, to be written on conditions other than set out in the Act. However, two sections of the Act, ss 7 and 8, cannot be contracted out of. Those two provisions mainly allow an injured party direct action against the insurer of large sized operations, including ships subject to the provisions of the Norwegian Maritime Code. Accordingly, for marine insurance, there is complete contractual freedom, limited only by general contractual principles against illegal and unfair contracts and mandatory provisions of the ICA 1989.
