Browsing: Legal Papers of John Adams, Volume 1

Bac. 3. 599.2 Tit. Merchant. “Where a Policy is a perfect Cheat as where a Person, having certain Intelligence that a Ship is lost, insures so much, this shall not bind the Insurer.”

Molloy. B. 2, c. 7, §5, bottom.3 “A Merchant having a doubtful Account of his Ship, insures her, without acquainting the Insurers of her danger; Chancery relieved against the Policy of this fraudulent Insurance.”

Ditto. “If the Party, that caused the Assurance to be made saw the ship was lost, 4 or had certain Intelligence, such subscription will not oblige, the same being accounted a mere fraud.”

But Yet,

Molloy. B. 2, c. 7, §5. “Those Assurances are most dangerous when these Words are inserted 'lost or not lost'; which is commonly done when a ship hath been long missing and no Tidings can be had, the Premio (especially in Time of War) will run very high, sometimes {p. 192} 30 or 40 per Cent, and though it happens at the Time that the subscription is made, the ship is cast away, yet the Assurers must answer.”