not owned by a company.
26 E.g Wolfsberg principles into EU directives and English Money Laundering Regulations.
27 E.g. The Money laundering Regulations 2003, S.I. 2003/3075.
28 Which specifically excludes insurance contracts from its scope in Schedule 1.1(a).
29 Of 4th May 1977.
30 Of 28th July 1977.
31 MIA 1906
is generally applied to all contracts of insurance unless specified otherwise.
voluntary which factors raised questions over their adequacy and fairness, which will be addressed in
the dissertation. The most important factor for the small craft insured is, as previously noted, their
unique position with regard to insurance contract law as, traditionally, the small craft insured is
categorised as a marine risk, marine risks are considered commercial not consumer contracts and the
Statements excluded marine insurance entirely.
The creation of the Insurance Ombudsman in 1981 provided only a very limited forum to seek a
remedy for any insurance contract dispute. The Insurance Ombudsman service was subsumed into the
Financial Ombudsman Service in 2000. The Financial Ombudsman Service has wide responsibilities to
regulate any prescribed financial activity carried out by a wide variety of providers e.g. banks, building
societies, insurance companies and agents.32 However, like its predecessor the service is primarily
concerned with ensuring the consumer does not lose out because of the insolvency of the insurer.
The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 199433 (the ‘Regulations’) implemented in
response to Directive 93/1334 ‘finally ended the marine insurance industry’s period of isolation from
consumer legislation’35 as they apply to all consumer insurance contracts. However, although
applicable to marine insurance contracts, they are restricted by their wording in the effect they can
have.36 The problems arise in relation to what can be considered an unfair term, the main subject matter
of the contract and plain, intelligible language. Marine insurance contracts may fall foul of the本英语论文由英语论文网www.51lunwen.org提供
anticipated protection of the Regulations, as, although they are mostly standard form, a bespoke policy
is more common in this area than any other insurance area and so would not be covered as the
Regulations do not cover individually negotiated terms. Similarly the preamble to the Directive
contained a passage to the effect that core terms for insurance policies would not be subject to the
Regulations.37 As Fletcher-Tomenius stated38 this has been taken to include exclusions, which are,
arguably the most important and contentious terms in insurance contracts.39 The requirement for plain,
intelligible language has been that most readily and vociferously adopted by the industry. It is
submitted that this is because it was the area the insurer would most easily be found accountable for, as
it covered any part of the contract, therefore the insurer had to ensure this was dealt with. It was also an
area that the industry could use as a sop to those calling for Regulation pointing to the great strides it
had made in ensuring its contracts were intelligible.
To date, the ombudsman service, under its original incarnation and now as part of the general Financial
Ombudsman Service has not reported de
