Successive losses in marine insurance

Although constructive total loss is as old as marine insurance itself, the principle often sits uneasily within the marine insurance law regime and it is still capable of giving rise to fundamental issues of principle. In Kastor Navigation Co v Axa Global Risks (UK) Ltd [2003] Lloyd’s Rep IR 262 , the main questions to be determined by Tomlinson J were whether the assured could rely in principle upon a constructive total loss which was followed almost immediately by an actual total loss and, if so, how such reliance could be reconciled with the requirements of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 for the service of a notice of abandonment. Tomlinson J’s judgment, which was ultimately favourable to the assured, contains a wealth of learning on the nature of constructive total loss and on the background to the codifying provisions contained in the 1906 Act.