Helen Clark and Peter Fidler of EAPD attended this joint seminar, chaired by the Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Rix on 31 March 2009. The panel, including David Hertzell, Law Commissioner, Bob Britton, Chairman of the LMA Law Reform Committee and Paul Hopkin, Technical Director of AIRMIC, analysed the responses to date to the Consultation on the reform of insurance contract law and confirmed the next stages of the process.

There is very strong support for urgent reform of consumer insurance law (see our report of 2 June 2008) and the Law Commission plan to publish a report and draft Bill in Autumn 2009. As reported here previously, the Law Commission has recently published a policy statement on the passing of pre-contract information from consumer to insurer and a number of “high-level principles” will be included within the forthcoming draft Bill.

There is also support for the reform of pre-contractual business insurance law (see our report of 24 October 2008) and the Commission propose consulting further on this issue. On 16 April an issues paper on micro businesses will be published, to be followed by a further issues paper on business insurance in Summer 2009.

A second consultation paper is expected in 2010 covering issues including insurable interest, the post-contractual duty of good faith and damages for late payment of claims. It is expected that the project will conclude in 2011.

We will continue to provide updates on this wide ranging review of UK insurance law on insurereinsure.com.