1.3 Definition and Nature of Insurance Laws

The definition's classic frame: insurance is a contract whereby the insurer, in consideration of the premium, agrees to compensate the insured against the loss from the specified uncertain event (the indemnity form) or to pay the specified sum (the life form). The law's nature: the contract law's branch with its own doctrines — the insurance contract is uberrimae fidei (of the utmost good faith — a higher standard than the ordinary contract's); the law is part-contract, part- regulatory (the public-interest layer: the insurer's solvency, the policyholder's protection); the statute-and-standard-forms world (the policy's mass production — the regulator's intervention in the terms).