Reasonable care provisions - Protecting cars against theft

(Hayward v Norwich Union Insurance Ltd, forthcoming in 2000 Lloyd’s Rep IR)

The decision in Hayward v Norwich Union Insurance Ltd, forthcoming in 2000 Lloyd’s Rep IR, will be greeted by insurers with disappointment although perhaps very little surprise. The result on its face seems to deprive policy wording of much of its intended meaning and gives further support to those who have argued—with some force (in both senses)—that the process of depriving insurers of their demands for the assured to take reasonable precautions to avoid loss has been allowed to go too far.