Laws That Govern Insurance

Under The Civil Code:

Art. 2011. The contract of insurance is governed by special laws.  Matters not expressly provided for in such special laws shall be regulated by this Code.

Art. 2012. Any person who is forbidden from receiving any donation under Art. 739 cannot be named beneficiary of a life insurance policy by a person who cannot make any donation to him, according to said article.

Art. 2021.  The aleatory contract of life annuity binds the debtor to pay an annual pension or income during the life of one or more determinate persons in consideration of a capital consisting of money or other property, whose ownership is transferred to him at once with the burden of income.

Art. 2022.  The annuity may be constituted upon the life of the person who gives the capital, upon that of a third person, or upon the lives of various persons, all of whom must be living at the time the annuity is established.

It may also be constituted in favor of the person or persons upon whose life or lives the contract is entered into, or in favor of another or other persons.

Art. 2023. Life annuity shall be void if constituted upon the life of a person who was already dead at the time the contract was entered into, or who was at the that time suffering from an illness which caused his death within twenty days following said date.

Art. 2024.  The lack of payment of the income due does not authorize the recipient of the life annuity to demand the reimbursement of the capital or to retake possession of the property alienated, unless there is a stipulation to the contrary; he shall have only a right judicially to claim the payment of the income in arrears and to require a security for the future income, unless there is a stipulation to the contrary.

Art. 2025.  The income corresponding to the year in which the person enjoying it dies shall be pain in proportion to the days during which he lived; if the income should be paid by installments in advance, the whole amount of the installment which began to run during his life shall be paid.

Art. 2026.  He who constitutes an annuity by gratuitous title upon his property, may provide at the time the annuity is established that the same shall not be subject to execution or attachment on account of the obligations of the recipient of the annuity.  If the annuity was constituted in fraud of creditors, the latter may ask for execution or attachment of the property.

Art. 2027.  No annuity shall be claimed without first proving the existence of the person upon whose life the annuity is constituted.

Special Laws That Govern Insurance

1. Revised GSIS Act of 1977 (PD 1146, as amended)
2. Social Security Act of 1954 ( RA 1161, (as amended)
3. The Property Insurance Law ( RA 656, as amended by PD 245)
4. Republic Act No. 4898
5. EO 250; and
6. RA 3591

How to construe provisions of the Insurance Code

Since our present IC is based mainly on the Insurance Act, which in turn was taken verbatim from the law of California (except for Chap V, which was taken from the law of NY), the courts should follow in fundamental points, at least, the construction placed by California Courts on California law (and the construction placed by the NY Courts on NY law).

This is in accordance with the well settled rule in statutory construction that when a statute has been adopted from some other state or country, and said statute has previously been construed by the courts of such state or country, the statute is usually deemed to have been adopted with the construction so given.