General insurance principles

The general principles of insurance contracts apply to the policies of insurance taken out in relation to construction projects—see Practice Note: General principles of insurance contract law. Some of the particular issues to be aware of include:

Duty of fair presentation

The Insurance Act 2015 (IA 2015) introduced the duty of ‘fair presentation’ of the risk to the insurer, replacing and updating the duties in relation to disclosure and representation in the Marine Insurance Act 1906. This comprises three requirements:

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disclosure of every material circumstance which the insured knows or ought to know, or failing that (under a new second limb), disclosure which gives the insurer sufficient information to put a prudent insurer on notice that it needs to make further enquiries for the purpose of revealing material circumstances
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disclosure in a manner which would be reasonably clear and accessible to a prudent insurer
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every material representation as to a matter of fact is substantially correct, and every material representation as to a matter of expectation or belief is made in good faith

Where the duty

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