Concurrent Causation and Proportional Liability in Chinese Insurance Law

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the approach adopted in Chinese and English law to the issue of concurrent causation in insurance law. The paper notes that the Chinese courts adopt a proportional liability regime to hold insurers liable if one of the proximate causes is an insured risk, and argues that this regime ignores other proximate causes as uninsured risks or excluded risks and therefore violates the real intention of parties to insurance contracts. The paper concludes that the proportional liability regime is not an appropriate approach for determining the insurer’s liability in the circumstance of concurrent causation and that the resolution of this issue should rather depend upon the construction of the insurance contract.