1.5 What Need not be Disclosed?
Despite the onerous nature of the duty of disclosure upon the
insured, the situation is ameliorated somewhat by some seven
categories of facts which need not be disclosed to the insurer:
1.5.1 Facts within the constructive knowledge of
insurers.
The proposer need not disclose what is known or assumed to be
known by the insurer.113 It is instructive to compare
the assumptions of knowledge made by the proposer with the
assumptions of knowledge in the insurer.
It is clear law that insurers are assumed to know the practices
of the trade they insure,114 but in current affairs the
insurer's memory is assumed to be short. In the leading case of
Bates v. Hewitt115 the Court decided
that, as the insurance of a ship did not in fact realise that the
ship was the same one as the confederate cruiser that had come to
England four months earlier in a glare of publicity, that should
have been brought home to the insurer by the assured.
