1.1 Introduction

The law of insurance can be divided into two distinct topics. One is the law of insurance contracts, which governs the legal relations between the insurer and the insured. The other is insurance regulations, which can be generally defined as a mechanism used to control the behaviour of participants in an insurance market. The Insurance Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter, the Insurance Law)1 consists of both the insurance contract law and insurance regulation. The former governs the activities of the insurers and the insureds, and the latter regulates the behaviour of insurance companies in China's insurance market. This book is concerned with the rules of law relating to insurance contracts (with a brief introduction to insurance regulation in Chapter 3); while the regulatory aspect of the Insurance Law has been considered in detail in another book by the author: The Regulation of Insurance in China . 2