Abstract:
Despite the growing development of life insurance in the country, unfortunately, the legal problems and issues arising from this insurance have always remained shrouded in ambiguity. In other words, what is certain is that every legal institution possesses specific effects and unique issues, and life insurance is no exception to this general rule. However, what must be noted is that some legal institutions, due to their widespread use by the public, are evaluated legally much faster than other institutions, and specialists quickly seek necessary solutions to resolve the problems and issues arising from the implementation of those institutions. Conversely, the less public acceptance there is for a legal institution, the less its resulting issues and problems are attended to and studied by experts. Life insurance is among those institutions that, because it has been used less, has proportionally revealed fewer of its problems. On one hand, the Iranian Insurance Law, which is an old law, lacks specific provisions regarding the issues arising from life insurance contracts and the legal nature of this institution; on the other hand, the shortage of lawsuits and legal issues arising from life insurance contracts and the absence of guiding judicial precedents—stemming from the low number of these contracts—has further exacerbated the situation, keeping the legal nature of this legal institution and its effects shrouded in ambiguity. Therefore, in this article, while defining life insurance and its types, the legal nature of this type of contract and ultimately its legal effects are examined through a comparison of this legal institution with other recognized contracts and agreements.
Machine summary:
Keywords: Life insurance, insurance contract, life insurance capital, beneficiary, legal nature, conclusion and dissolution (life insurance contract), specified subject, legitimacy, principle of good faith, specific contract, istihsan (juristic preference), gift, will, settlement, commitment to the benefit of a third party, legal effects.
A) Conclusion and Dissolution of the Life Insurance Contract The legislator in Article 1 of the Insurance Law passed in 1316 has explicitly considered insurance to be a contract; therefore, there is no doubt that life insurance, which is one of the types of insurance, is also a contract and must, like other contracts, be subject to the general rules and essential conditions for the validity of contracts and transactions as enumerated in Article 190 of the Civil Code; otherwise, the concluded contract will be non-executable or void depending on the case.
Second, in the relationship between the policyholder and the insurer, it can be considered largely similar to a reciprocal gift (the subject of Article 801 of the Civil Code), because in a reciprocal gift, the donee may, in exchange for the donor's generosity, undertake to perform a task for the benefit of the donor or a third party; therefore, it could be imagined that the donor (policyholder), within the contract of gift (life insurance contract), stipulates that the donee (insurer) shall pay a certain amount to the beneficiary of the insurance contract after his death or the death of the insured person.
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