Waiver of Defences Clause in the Original Insurance

4.01 It may not be obvious at first sight how some clauses can operate both in the insurance and reinsurance contracts. An illustration of this is HIH Casualty & General Insurance Ltd v New Hampshire Insurance Co 1 which raised the position of a waiver of defences clause by which the direct insurer waived its right of disclosure from the assured and of avoidance in case of misrepresentation. The full facts of this case were given earlier in the discussion of the general criteria for the incorporation into reinsurance of terms from the direct policy,2 but are outlined here for the sake of convenience. Clause 8 of the original policy provided: