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Insurance Bill

Bill No. 40/1966

Read the first time on 26th October 1966.

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

Be it enacted by the President with the advice and consent of the Parliament of Singapore, as follows: —

PART I

PRELIMINARY

Short title and commencement

1. This Act may be cited as the Insurance Act, 1966, and shall come into operation on such date as the Minister may, by notification in the Gazette, appoint.

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, namely —

(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.

(2) For the purposes of this Act, the re-insurance 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 re-insurer.

(3) Notwithstanding anything in subsections (1) and (2) of this section, if the Commissioner 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 Commissioner may direct that it shall be so treated for the purposes of this Act.

(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” shall 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 Singapore policies.

(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 Ordinance (Cap. 228) shall be deemed to be an insurer, and no agent for such a society 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.

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