The law of fire and life insurance / by George Beaumont.

  • Beaumont, George Duckett Barber.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The law of fire and life insurance / by George Beaumont. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    maxims of Law and the usage of Commerce as to the contract of Life Insurance. To give distinctly the Law from which the legal features of any case can be known, and then to mention those par- ticulars on which the practice of Commerce con- trols the Law, seemed to be the course most likely to bring discussions on Life Insurance out of the confusion into which they have too frequently fallen. The authority of Mr. Babbage (than whom no man was more capable of executing the task of analyzing the practice of the different Insurance Companies) seems to make Life Insurance an exception to that leading idea of Insurance in general, namely, that it is a contract of indemnity as distinguished from a wager (a). But the argu- ment of Mr. Babbage is easily answered, as he would at once have perceived if the pursuits to which he is devoted had been mixed with those of the profession to which the present question belongs. Mr. Babbage thinks that Marine Insurance is distinguished by the circum- stance of the claim of the insured depending on his right to abandon^ and of such claim upon a («) Mr. Babbage also uses Assure ” and “ Insure,” as having distinct meanings. It appears, however, that the two words only differ as “ enfeeble ” and “ afFaiblir,” which have both the same meanings; the one having the Saxon prefix the other the French or laitin. So “ sweeten” and “ adoucir,” ^‘shorten”and “accourcir,” ‘‘enfranchise”and affranchir, c^c.