Bifurcated Substantive and Legislatively-Technical Understanding of the Differences in the UK Statutory “Consumer” Definitions Applicable to Insurance

Han Yong ()
Additional contact information
Han Yong: Lecturer in Law, University of Reading, UK

International Review of Financial Consumers, 2023, vol. 8, issue 1, 69-89

Abstract: This paper explains why the two UK statutory definitions of “consumer(s)” are so markedly different in the two strands of relevant statutes applicable to insurance. The basic difference between them is that by the narrow definition an insurance consumer can only be an individual whereas by the broad definition it can be either an individual or a firm, and there are other nuanced differences. This basic difference has begged questions about the protection of financial/insurance consumers. The first reason of such a marked difference is that, as a matter of legislative technique and practice in common law countries, the validity and applicability of its statutory legal definition of a terminology in one particular statute is intended to be limited only to that statute and not extendable by default to the same terminology in other statutes. The second and far more important substantive reason is the actual bifurcation of financial consumer protection practically into the judicial approach and the regulatory approach thereto. Consistent with such bifurcation, the narrow and the broad consumer definitions respectively but non-exclusively serve or match the markedly different judicial approach and the regulatory approach to financial/insurance consumer protection.

Keywords: consumer definition; consumer protection; judicial approach; regulatory approach; insurance contract law; financial regulation; dispute resolution (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.36544/irfc.2023.8-1.5 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:vrs:irfinc:v:8:y:2023:i:1:p:69-89:n:1005

DOI: 10.36544/irfc.2023.8-1.5

Access Statistics for this article

International Review of Financial Consumers is currently edited by Sharon Tennyson

More articles in International Review of Financial Consumers from Sciendo
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().