TITLE:
A Comparative Study of Chinese and American Insurance Laws and Its Enlightenment for the Perfection of China’s Legal System
AUTHORS:
Ying He
KEYWORDS:
Insurance Law, Sino-US Comparison, Principle of Utmost Good Faith, Insurance Supervision, Consumer Protection, Institutional Perfection
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.16 No.10,
October
20,
2026
ABSTRACT: As a core branch of commercial and financial law, insurance law undertakes the critical functions of standardizing market transaction behaviors, rectifying information asymmetry between contracting parties, balancing the legitimate rights and interests of insurers, policyholders, and insured parties, and preventing systemic and operational financial risks within the insurance industry. It has become an indispensable institutional foundation for maintaining the stable operation of the modern financial system and protecting public livelihood security. China and the United States represent typical legal systems of civil law and common law respectively, resulting in fundamental differences in the legislative philosophy, institutional framework, core operational rules, regulatory mechanisms, and judicial application paradigms of their insurance legal systems. The insurance legal system of the United States is established on the basis of decentralized state legislation and authoritative case law, adhering to the core values of contractual freedom, market autonomy, and judicial equity, and has formed a highly mature institutional system focusing on market-oriented governance and insurance consumer protection after long-term market iteration and judicial refinement. In contrast, China’s insurance legal system is dominated by unified statutory codification, strictly abiding by the basic principles of utmost good faith and loss compensation, and commits to standardized market governance and compliant industrial development under a centralized regulatory framework. On the basis of sorting out the institutional origins and legal values of Sino-American insurance laws, this paper systematically compares the institutional differences in legislative modes, the application of the principle of utmost good faith, insurable interest identification standards, information disclosure and notification obligations, industry supervision models, and dispute resolution mechanisms between the two countries. By analyzing the institutional advantages and inherent deficiencies of the two legal systems under different economic and legal environments, this study targets the prominent institutional bottlenecks and practical dilemmas existing in the current development of China’s insurance market. Combined with the mature institutional experience of American insurance law in refined rule design, consumer preferential protection, and market-oriented supervision, this paper proposes feasible optimization paths for improving China’s insurance legislative system, refining the whole-industry regulatory system, optimizing judicial dispute resolution mechanisms, and strengthening insurance consumer rights and interests protection. The research results aim to provide theoretical references and practical suggestions for promoting the high-quality development of China’s insurance industry and accelerating the modernization and internationalization of the insurance legal governance system.