The plaintiff was a person whom the broker knew was to become the assignee of an insurance policy, and the plaintiff had actively participated in giving instructions to the broker for the purchase of the relevant policy.
Held: A duty of care was exceptionally owed by an insurance broker not only to his client but also to a specific person whom he knew was to become an assignee of the policy. However, in the absence of extraordinary circumstances, a broker owes no duty of care to prevent economic loss except in accordance with his or her contract of retainer.
the employees of underwriting firms who had been responsible for acts of nondisclosure and misrepresentation were themselves liable for those acts. The reasoning of the court in that case was that those individuals ‘were evidently entrusted with the whole or nearly the whole of the task which their employers undertook’.
Staughton LJ said: ‘if the parties to a concluded contract subsequently agree in express terms that some words in it are to be replaced by others, one can have regard to all aspects of the subsequent agreement in construing the contract, including the deletions, even in a case which is not, or is not wholly, concerned with a printed form.’
Judges:
Staughton
Citations:
[1992] 1 WLR 1138, [1992] 1 Lloyds Rep 7, [1992] 3 All ER 104
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – European International Reinsurance Co Ltd v Curzon Insurance Ltd and Others CA 22-Jul-2003
Re-insurers sought to repudiate liability under policies taken out to provide cover against asbestos claims. The primary insurers obtained oredrs joinging in the brokers who had arranged the re-insurance, and the brokers appealed those orders.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Negligence, Contract
Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.186036