The authors have produced a new textbook on insurance law intended for both undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as for professional people whose work involves some acquaintance with the subject. The contents are divided into three parts. Part One contains nine chapters covering the general principles of insurance contracts in 222 pages of text. Part Two consists of some 40 pages in which six specific insurance contracts are considered, namely, Marine, Motor, Liability, Fire, Accident and Reinsurance. Part Three contains two chapters on Insurance Intermediaries and Regulation of the Insurance Industry respectively, occupying some 55 pages. The law is stated as at 1 May 1999, and the authors’ aim is to provide a comprehensive examination of the subject, combining exposition with critical analysis.

The book competes for the same readership as the established student text in this field, Professor Birds’s Modern Insurance Law . The text is written in a readable and lucid style, as befits its intended readership. Two features which distinguish it from Professor Birds’s book are the very generous footnote references to other insurance books and periodical literature, and the greater coverage of specific insurance law contracts. The former is welcome, but the latter is open to question in a book of this size, because it is impossible to do justice to the subject matter in the space available.

Accident Insurance, for instance, is allocated just seven pages, only three more than the four pages devoted to one sole decision in misrepresentation, Economides v. Commercial Assurance [1998] Q.B. 587. The subject is organized by reference to the analysis of “accident” and “accidental injury” in the judgment of Mustill, L.J., in De Souza v. Home and Overseas Insurance Co. [1995] LRLR 453. Space precludes discussion of the other coverage wordings found in accident policies and there is no discussion of the controversial side to that decision in committing English law to the distinction between accidental means and accidental results at a time when courts in Scotland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US have expressed disillusionment with it. Similarly, it is difficult to convey much of the complicated character of Reinsurance in nine pages, and one wonders if this is really a more suitable candidate than Life Insurance for inclusion in a student textbook.

Marine Insurance is covered in 30 pages, curtailing a discussion of several points of interest. So, for instance, the section on change of destination under a voyage policy refers to s. 45 of the Marine Insurance Act 1906 but omits its problematic neighbour, s. 44. The reader is not alerted to their apparent overlap, and to the problems created by the application of s. 44 to voyages “at and from” a named starting point. Again, the treatment of sue and labour makes no reference to the debate concerning the relationship of ss 78(4) and 55(2)(a) of the Act and its recent resolution in the Court of Appeal decision of State of the Netherlands v. Youell [1998] 1 Lloyd’s Rep. 236. Space precludes a full coverage of the differences in hull and cargo insurance under their respective Institute Clauses. One may doubt whether it is possible to convey a proper understanding of the subject without generous citation from these standard clauses, and it is hard to see how this chapter can usefully

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