Senate body passesMarine Insurance Bill, 2017

ISLAMABAD: Senate standing committee on commerce and textile industry on Thursday approved The Marine Insurance Bill, 2017, which, after becoming a law, would regulate the maritime trade in the country bringing an end to the over a hundred-year-old British Marine Act, 1906.

“The Marine Insurance Bill 2017 is aimed at maintaining transparency in maritime trade of the country,” Senator Syed Shibli Faraz, chairman senate committee, said after chairing a meeting that discussed and approved the bill.

Senator Faraz said the committee had studied the bill line by line and took inputs form the relevant departments and stakeholders to remove all sorts of lacunas from the bill before its approval.

The sole objective of the bill is to boost marine insurance sector, provide a legal framework for regulations, get rid of contradictions and similarities with other existing laws and furnish rules for construction/interpretation of marine insurance policies.

Muhammad Younas Dhaga, secretary commerce and textiles industry, said before this bill, Pakistan did not have a law to deal with marine insurance, and business was being carried out on the basis of British Marine Act, 1906.

“The bill will cover the subjects including marine insurance, insurable interest, insurable value, disclosure and representation,” Dhaga said.

Secretary commerce added that the committee reviewed the proposals from all the institutions to simplify and amend the bill to make it free of complexities.

It must be noted that the bill has been referred to the committee by the Senate, while the National Assembly has passed the Bill during its session on May 17, 2017.

Also, Insurance Ordinance 2000 (Section 4.(3)(a) clearly defines marine, aviation and transport business are non-life insurance business. Nonetheless, Section 115 of the Insurance Ordinance 2000 titled “Application of Pakistan law to policies in Pakistan” says that nothing in this section shall apply to a policy of marine insurance. Thus, as such, the matter of marine insurance is not covered by the 'Insurance Ordinance 2000.'

Earlier, the senate body formed a special panel of experts to review “The Marine Insurance Bill, 2017 “and directed it to report to the committee for fixing any anomalies in the bill.

In the light of proposals from the special panel members the senate committee further reviewed the suggestions of the experts from different relevant institutions.

The special committee comprised on experts from National Insurance Company Limited (NICL), Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), Pakistan National Shipping Corporation (PNSC), etc.

Senator Mufti Abdul Sattar, Saud Majeed, Rubina Khalid, and official of ministry of commerce and government institutions participated in meeting.