Consumer Insurance and the Necessity to Define it Within the Trade Insurance Bill

Abstract

The governing laws on insurance relations in Iran are based on the 1316 Insurance Bill. In order to overcome the problems and ambiguities within this law, in 2005 the Iranian government presented a bill, labeled the ‘Trade Insurance Bill’, to the Iranian parliament; this was to be taken as a replacement for the Insurance Bill. However this bill does not address consumer insurance and there seems to be no difference between trade insurance and consumer insurance within the bill. Thus insurers offering consumer insurance are not required to undertake the same obligations as the insurers of non-consumer insurance. As a result, they are not equally protected by sanctions. This matter is unacceptable in the current legal society and is not in sync with financial and insurance policies around the world.In this study, the Adaptive Study Method is employed to illustrate the necessity of distinguishing between consumer insurance and non-consumer insurance. In consumer insurance, clauses, which differ from permitted disclosure clauses in non-consumer insurance policies and which offer suitable legal sanctions, must be put in place. This study offers several suggestions to help reform the Trade Consumer Bill.