Professor Özlem Gürses
Özlem Gürses is a professor of commercial law at King's College London. She is a Committee Member of BILA, sits in Presidential Council of AIDA and Vice-Chair of the Reinsurance Working Party. As well as King's College London Özlem teaches insurance, reinsurance and marine insurance law at several other institutions in home and abroad including the University of Hamburg, World Maritime University, National University of Singapore, Queen Mary-University of London. Özlem is the author of a number of books on insurance and reinsurance law, the most widely known of which probably is Marine Insurance Law (a student textbook) and the latest book she published is on the compulsory motor vehicle insurance.
Practice Area
Panel
- Contributing Author
Membership
- BILA (British Insurance Law Association) Committee
- AIDA (International Insurance Law Association) – Presidential Council
- Reinsurance Working Party – AIDA (Vice- Chair)
- Society of Legal Scholars
Qualifications
- LLB (2001)
- LLM (Public Law) (2004)
- LLM (Maritime Law) (2006)
- PhD (Reinsurance Law) (2009)
Education
- University of Southampton (PhD): (2006-2009)
- University of Southampton (LLM) (2005-2006)
- Istanbul University (LLM) (2002-2004)
- Istanbul University (LLB) (1997-2001)
1 Contributions by Özlem Gürses
PRACTICE NOTES
Reinsurance loss settlement clauses under English law: follow the settlements, qualified Hill v Mercantile & General provisions, proof of loss, and interaction with claims co-operation and control clauses
Loss settlement clauses
Reinsurance agreements can be set up on a proportional or a non‑proportional basis, and loss settlement clauses appear across both structures. Their core role is to capture the parties’ consensus on how the reinsured can evidence its loss when seeking to recover under the reinsurance. It documents the evidential route and threshold to be followed in presenting any reinsurance claim, where applicable by the reinsured party. Where the reinsurer has adequate confidence in its cedant’s handling of inwards claims, the usual aim is to ease the reinsured’s evidential burden that would otherwise arise at common law, and to reduce the need for reinsurers to re‑examine the underlying claims. Certain loss settlement provisions also include express safeguards or provisos to prevent the reinsurer’s bargain being defeated by binding settlements that fall outside the granted cover. Wording dealing with loss settlement may further be paired with incorporation language that brings across the terms and conditions of the underlying policy, aligning the extent of cover with that policy (commonly, though not solely, in proportional treaties). The classic illustration is the ‘full reinsurance clause’, which imports the original insurance terms into the reinsurance contract while also setting out the parties’ arrangements as to the...
Insurance & Reinsurance
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