Legal nature of business risk insurance

Abstract

This paper raises the question of the legal nature of business risk insurance. A conclusion is made that the legal understanding of business risk insurance should be built upon the unity of the actual content of this type of insurance and its legal form. The presence of a special subject on the policy holder’s side in business risk insurance determines the features of the object of such type of insurance, which is represented by an entrepreneur’s insurable interests related to one’s business activity. In the legal sense, insurance is a legal relationship and is characterized by a bilateral connection between the insurer and the policyholder that manifests in a unity of their subjective rights and responsibilities. Two aspects of insurance indicate not the existence of two independent notions free from each other: insurance in the economic sense and insurance in the legal sense, but rather demonstrate two aspects of one phenomenon that exist in an inseparable unity. In the course of comparing business risk insurance and liability insurance, the author comes to a conclusion that unlike liability insurance, business risk insurance is connected not with the policyholder’s wrongful behavior but, on the contrary, with the possible dishonesty of their contracting party.