Preface

• Pages: ix-ix

The idea of writing a textbook on insurance law in the Commonwealth Caribbean derives

from a fascination with the mixture of separate areas of the law – contract, crime, family law

and fi nance – all entwined in the practice of insurance business. Immediately upon consider-

ation of insurance law this connectivity reveals itself. I began working on the project while on

sabbatical at American University Washington College of Law. Progress, in part, was almost

guaranteed by the fact that I was teaching insurance law to both graduates and undergradu-

ates in the Faculty of Law at Cave Hill, the Barbados campus of The University of the West

Indies. This diverse community of students hailed from Canada to Guyana, often encompass-

ing nationals of all the CARICOM (Caribbean Community) member countries.

An element of uniqueness – the multi-jurisdictional nature of insurance law in the Com-

monwealth Caribbean – at times presents di erences with more than the typical level of com-

plexity to be resolved. This realisation, that true understanding requires creation of a road map

of insurance law in the region, led me to the task I deemed necessary: to describe and explain

the evolution of insurance law in the Commonwealth Caribbean. As work on the material

progressed, placing me at a good place in comfort with what I had achieved, most jurisdictions

in the region were hit without warning by the CLICO collapse. CLICO had succeeded the

Colonial Life Insurance Co. Ltd, founded in 1936. This event forced revision of the text as

the jurisdictions of the Commonwealth of the Bahamas, St Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and

Tobago scrambled to (and did) succeed in reforming their laws. I have tried to incorporate all

the legislative reform and their implications for the insurance business. My hope is that this text

will be of benefi t generally to the Caribbean and of assistance specifi cally to students of the law,

judges, lawyers engaged in its practice and those toiling in the academic vineyard.

In bringing the material from idea to publication I have been assisted by the searching

questions of my students as well as comments of those – referenced in the acknowledgements –

who have been kind enough to devote their time, despite grueling schedules, to read and com-

ment on di erent parts of the book. That said, I must insist that they bear no responsibility for

any lingering infelicities that have yet found themselves into the text – these I lay claim to, solely.

PREFACE