Commentary on the Amendment of Insurance Contract Law in February 2015

Abstract

二○一五年二月公布的保險法修正條文中，共有三處契約法的修正，包括增訂人身保險死亡事故發生後，保險人對於受益人的通知義務、要保人訂約時告知義務的歸責事由，以及人壽保險被保險人年齡不實的處理方式。這三處修正對於要保人權益影響頗大，但修法前卻未經各界討論，且最終修正條文與原始修正理由有所不同，易生解釋上的疑義，本文擬予以釐清。尤其是訂約前要保人據實說明義務的新規定，應解為僅限於要保人故意違反義務時，保險人始得解除契約。

On the 4th February 2015, Taiwanese legislator modified Insurance Act, and there are three amendments regarding to the insurance contract law. First, the amendment asks life insurer to notify the beneficiary when insured has been dead (insured event has been occurred). Second, the legislator modified the pre-contractual duty of insured of disclosure and the default degree. Third, the legislator modified the solution on the misstatement of age clause. Those amendments improve the status of insurance consumer. However, there was no discussion by the public before the legislation, and the final amendments are different from the original grounding. Therefore, it is easy to produce confusion on explaining the new provisions. This article clarifies the amendments, especially the provision of pre-contractual duty of disclosure. This article considers that by the misrepresentation, the insurer can avoid insurance contract, only when the proposer deliberately breaches the duty to disclose.