Fair presentation of the risk: implied waiver

The Inner House of the Court of Session has, in Young v Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance plc [2020] CSIH 25, dismissed an appeal by the assured from the decision of the Outer House, [2019] Lloyd’s Rep IR 482 on the meaning of the duty of fair presentation in the Insurance Act 2015. The question was whether the insurers had, by asking questions that were strictly limited in their ambit, waived disclosure of facts that would have been material but outside the scope of the questions.

Both the trial judge and the appeal court rejected that possibility. Although this is the first decided case on the duty of fair presentation under the 2015 Act, the principles relating to waiver have not been altered from those applicable under the old Marine Insurance Act 1906.