Insurance and the Law of Obligations

• Presents the first systematic analysis of the place of insurance in understanding the nature and purpose of private law
• Examines both theoretical debates about the normative underpinnings of private law and more practical issues surrounding the impact of insurance law on legal policy
• Includes a clear introduction to the theory, policy, and core doctrines of insurance law for private lawyers

It is widely acknowledged that insurance has a major impact on the operation of tort and contract law regimes in practice, yet there is little sustained analysis of their interaction. The majority of academic private lawyers have little knowledge of insurance law in its own right, and the amount of discussion directed to insurance in private law theory is disproportionately small in relation to its practical importance. Filling this substantial gap in the literature, this book explores the multiple influences of insurance in the law of obligations, and the nature and impact of insurance law as an inherent and significant aspect of private law. It combines conceptual and doctrinal analysis, informing the theoretical discussion of the nature of private law, including the role of judicial and public purpose, and the place of formalism and of contextualism in normative theories of private law. 

Arguing for the wider recognition of the multiple impacts of insurance, the book claims that recognition of the presence of insurance necessarily marks a departure from the two-party framework sometimes described as definitive of private law. The structured exploration and interpretation of the contemporary role of insurance in the law of obligations, and of its implications, illuminates this under-explored area of private law, and equips the reader for further enquiry and debate.

Readership: Scholars and students working in the areas of insurance law, contract law, tort, the law of obligations, and philosophy of law; practitioners in the area of insurance law