Insurance Act - Singapore Statutes Online

Insurance Act

(CHAPTER 142)

(Original Enactment: M Ordinance 1 of 1963)

REVISED EDITION 1985

(30th March 1987)

An Act for the regulation of insurance business in Singapore, and for other purposes relating thereto or connected therewith.

[1st January 1967]

PART I

PRELIMINARY

Short title

1. This Act may be cited as the Insurance Act.

Classification of insurance business and construction of references to matters connected with insurance

2.—(1) For the purposes of this Act, insurance business shall be divided into two classes —

(a)

life business, which in addition to all insurance business concerned with life policies shall include, in the case of any insurer, any type of insurance business carried on as incidental only to the insurer’s other life business; and

(b)

general business, that is to say, all insurance business which is not life business, and shall include the effecting and carrying out by any person, not being a person licensed under the Monetary Authority of Singapore Act (Cap. 186), Banking Act (Cap. 19), Finance Companies Act (Cap. 108), Securities Industry Act (Cap. 289) or Futures Trading Act (Cap. 116), of contracts for fidelity bonds, performance bonds, administration bonds, bail bonds or customs bonds or similar contracts of guarantee, being contracts effected by way of business (and not merely incidental to some other business carried on by the person effecting them) in return for the payment of one or more premiums.

[Act 32 of 1993 wef 31/12/1993]

(2) For the purposes of this Act, the reinsurance of liabilities under insurance policies shall be treated as insurance business of the class and type to which the policies would have belonged if they had been issued by the reinsurer.

(3) Notwithstanding anything in subsections (1) and (2), if the Authority is satisfied that any part of an insurer’s business which belongs to a particular class or type of insurance business ought in the insurer’s case to be treated as belonging to another class or type, the Authority may direct that it shall be so treated for the purposes of this Act.

[11/86]

(4) For the purposes of this Act, references to carrying on insurance business include the carrying it on through an agent, or as agent; but “insurer” does not include an insurance agent as such nor, in the case of a person who is both insurer and insurance agent, have reference to business done as insurance agent.

(5) For the purposes of this Act, “Singapore insurer” and “Singapore insurance agent” mean a person who is or has been carrying on insurance business in Singapore as insurer and as insurance agent respectively, and “Singapore insurance broker” means a person who is or has been carrying on business as insurance broker in Singapore; and references to carrying on insurance business, or any class of insurance business, in Singapore include but include only the receipt of proposals for, or issuing of, policies in Singapore or the collection or receipt in Singapore of premiums on insurance policies.

[11/86]

(6) The operation, otherwise than for profit, of a scheme or arrangement relating to service in particular offices or employments, and having for its object or one of its objects to make provision in respect of persons serving therein against future retirement or partial retirement, or against future termination of service through death or disability, or against similar matters, shall not be treated for the purposes of this Act as carrying on the business of insurance.

(7) For the purposes of this Act, no society registered under the Societies Act [Cap. 311] or organisation registered under the Mutual Benefit Organisations Act [Cap. 191] or company engaged primarily in the business of export credit insurance shall be deemed to be an insurer, and no agent for such a society, organisation or company shall as such be deemed to be an insurance agent; nor shall references in this Act to a policy or contract of insurance apply to any policy or contract whereby an insurance is effected with such a society, organisation or company.

[50/75]

(8) The definitions set out in the First Schedule shall have effect for the construction of references in this Act to policies of insurance, policy owners and policy moneys.

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