Professor French presents paper arguing insurance policies don’t qualify as contracts

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – Christopher French, visiting assistant professor of law, presented his paper “The Illusion of Insurance Contracts” on Feb. 26 at the 11th International Conference on Contracts in San Antonio, Texas.

His paper challenges the conventional wisdom that insurance policies are a type of standardized contract and argues that they “do not qualify as contracts when the doctrinal and theoretical bases underlying the requirements for the formation of a contract are analyzed.”

To illustrate this point, French examines the process by which insurance policies are created and sold, as measured against the requirements for the formation of a contract, and distinguishes insurance policies from other types of standardized contracts. Exploring the doctrinal and theoretical bases underlying the rules that courts have developed to interpret insurance policies, French argues that courts have already implicitly recognized that insurance policies are not simply a type of standardized contract.

Finally, he proposes a reform to insurance law that would have shorter and more understandable policies drafted by third parties with input from both insurers and policyholders.

“Instead of using the current rules of insurance policy interpretation, the canons of statutory interpretation would be used to interpret insurance policies with consideration given to the drafting history, societal interests, overriding purpose of insurance, and with the drafter's interpretation given Chevron deference,” French writes.

Video of French’s presentation is available online (his talk begins at approximately the 20-minute mark).

French has written and published extensively in the area where insurance law intersects with contract and tort law. He has written numerous chapters in a two-volume insurance law treatise entitled Policyholder's Guide to the Law of Insurance Coverage and he is co-author of the fifth edition of Insurance Law in a Nutshell, published by West Academic. His scholarly work has been published in, among other journals, the Georgia State Law Review, Kansas Law Review, Nevada Law Review, University of Pennsylvania Journal of Business Law, Villanova Law Review, and Virginia Law & Business Review.

Prior to joining the faculty at Penn State Law, where he currently teaches Insurance Law, Property, Remedies, and Torts, he taught at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and Villanova Law School. He was formerly a partner at K&L Gates LLP where, as a commercial litigator, he handled all aspects of litigation matters for Fortune 500 companies and other businesses in federal and state courts across the United States, trying cases in seven different states. In addition to his advocacy work, he has also served as both a party-appointed and a neutral arbitrator.