보험대리상 등의 권한에 관한 소고

Abstract

In the Insurance Business Act of South Korea, solicitation refers to intermediate the conclusion of insurance contracts or act on behalf of customers for insurance contracts. In South Korea, most of the insurance solicitation takes place via insurance agencies and insurance salesmen. However, insurance policy holders reach contract signing without knowing such soliciting agencies’ authorities and legal positions accurately, thus, facing many legal problems. Against this backdrop, the authority of insurance agency, etc. has been clarified in the commercial law, the insurance contract law, to better protect the interest of insurance consumers. However, the newly incorporated provisions in Article 646-2 of the commercial law have some problem in their word selection and ways of specification that could puzzle not only policy holders but also legal experts about the clear intention of legislators based solely on the textual interpretation itself. In this recognition, this article analyzed such problems, explored alternatives and, accordingly, made some suggestions including explicit definition of insurance sales person. Given the situation, however, that the new amendment of the commercial law has yet to be implemented, any further amendment would be hardly made. So, it is viewed to be necessary to provide explanation, etc. of the corresponding provisions to help involved parties and others have a clear understanding. On the other hand, the current insurance business act defines insurance salesmen as those who belong to an insurance company, agency or broker, the new provision should be understood and interpreted in this context. In this article, the author dealt with the issue of policy holders, etc., to misunderstand insurance salesmen as insurance companies or confuse insurance brokers as insurance agencies and discussed that the new amendment would resolve much of these problems. insurance salesmen, once they pass the qualification exam, will work at an insurance company, agency or broker. Therefore, there is a difference between insurance salesmen belonging to insurance companies and those belonging to other insurance agencies or brokers. Accordingly, the author suggested some improvement herein in a phased manner centering on insurance salesmen working in insurance companies in exploring new authority provision establishment including insurance salesmen’ right to notice and collect or legal stance reinforcement. Given the actual practices of South Korean insurance solicitation, independent insurance agencies are said to harm the market order regarding the solicitation, raising the need to amend the law to make them directly accountable. In this recognition, this article explored how to improve this situation. However, making insurance agencies, etc. be directly responsible, regardless of insurance companies entrusting solicitation, needs to be profoundly reviewed in terms of the conformity with international norms and the national legal system. Since the provisions of Article 102 of the Insurance Business Act are related to policy contract, it was suggested herein that legislation should be made in the commercial law to govern the issue. Also, about the issue of independent insurance agencies undermining domestic market order of insurance solicitation, it was suggested that the Korean Financial Supervisory Service should be involved through administrative guidelines or reasonable supervision to reduce its harms. Another legislative suggestion was presented in this article from the perspective of policy contractors to facilitate insurance brokers which performs similar functions to insurance agencies.