생명보험에서의 피보험이익의 연구

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss the concept of insurable interest in life insurance in Anglo-American law, and to examine the possibility if this concept can be brought in Korean legal system. In Anglo-American law, insurable interest is one of the core elements in life insurance as well as non-life insurance. However, it is a prevalent view in Korea that insurable interest only applies to non-life insurance. The reason behind this is that it is impossible to calculate the value of human life, using loss and profit idea and that life policy is indifferent from any other chattel, thus transferable. Since the“the existence of the benefit”can be proved in case someone has special relationship with the insured, even if it is difficult to calculate the economic benefit derived from the survival of the insured, it is possible and necessary to prevent the moral hazard in life insurance also by examining the existence of insurable interest. Above argument that assignability of the policy of life insurance should not be restricted can not be the ground for the denial of concept of insurable interest in life insurance either because not all the chose in action is transferable freely. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt the concept of insurable interest in life insurance in Korea to prevent moral hazard and to preserve spirit of insurance as the fence against the risk. Alternatively, it is appropriate to amend current commercial law by adopting the concept of insurable interest in life insurance Also, insurable interest shall need to exist till the death of the insured. If it is proved that the insurable interest existed at the time of signing the contract and it is interpreted as sufficient to fulfill the element of insurable interest, prevention of moral hazard would not be possible. For the same reason, it is not appropriate to permit to assign the insurance contract to the person who does not possess the insurable interest. The harmful effect of the viatical settlement is continuously being reported in the United States. Whereas in Korea, only the positive sides of life settlement are being magnified. It seems that the cultural and social differences between the two countries were not taken into account. A careful review is required not to make mistakes where a good idea to promote the interests of the consumers turned out to cause negative effects on the consumers.