ABSTRACT
The legislation of insurable interest has a long and complex history. Policies included the wordings of ‘interest or no interest’ and ‘policies proof of interest’ (PPI) led insurance contracts to be used as a means for wager and gambling. Such practice required a legislative intervention as a result of which a series of Acts were adopted: The Marine Insurance Act 1745 (repealed), the Marine Insurance Act 1788 (repealed), the Gaming Act 1845, the Marine Insurance Act 1906 (MIA 1906), the Marine Insurance (Gambling Policies) Act 1909, the Gambling Act 2005. This chapter covers the date at which the insurable interest is to be found and how the insurable interest is assessed in a valued policy. The chapter explains how the insurable interest was defined by the common law courts and refers to several different circumstances where an insurable interest was admitted or rejected. Examples include interest of ‘owner’, ‘mortgagor and mortgagee’, ‘shareholder’, ‘ordinary creditor’, and ‘bailee’. Moreover, the chapter explains the meaning of ‘contingent’ and ‘pervasive’ interest, interest in ‘profit’, the meaning of ‘valuable benefit’ and ‘expectation interest’, ‘defeasible’ and ‘partial’ interest, and interest on ‘freight’.
