Presentation of the risk: consumer insurance

There is relatively little authority on the operation of the Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Act 2012, in particular the consumer’s obligation to take reasonable care not to make misrepresentation and the appropriate remedy. The legislation is very clearly drafted, and the vast majority of cases will turn on their facts. The only real point of law in Jones v Zurich Insurance plc [2021] EWHC 1320 (Comm) is that an insurer who wishes to argue that a misrepresentation was deliberately or recklessly made – thereby giving an automatic right to the insurers to avoid the policy – has to be pleaded specifically.

Jones : the facts