Civil war (war exclusion)

Beirut, 1976: Spinney's warehouses and stores are looted and destroyed. The insurers rely on the war exclusion in its classic form: "war, invasion, acts of foreign enemies, hostilities (whether war be declared or not), civil war, rebellion, revolution, insurrection, military or usurped power." Spinney's (1948) Ltd v Royal Insurance Co Ltd, decided in 1980 by Mustill J, is still the English reference. It sets out criteria for calling something a civil war: identifiable sides, the scale of the conflict, and an aim of taking or sharing power in the state. It then holds that the insurers had not shown, on the Lebanese facts of 1976, that a civil war was underway. That is the whole point: the exclusion exists, the party invoking it has to prove it, and chaos alone does not get there. French law says the same in Article L. 121-8 of the Insurance Code: the insurer must prove that the loss results from civil war, riots or civil commotion. For foreign war, it is the insured who must prove a separate cause. For a property underwriter, civil war is therefore an exclusion you only run with a file behind it: a timeline, a map of the fighting, evidence of how the belligerents are organized. Sudan, where the armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces have been fighting since April 15, 2023, is the clean case, two armies contesting the state. Most situations are messier, and the line with insurrection or riot gets litigated. Not to be confused with political violence cover, which buys back exactly what the exclusion takes away, naming civil war among the covered events.

• Spinney's (1948) Ltd v Royal Insurance Co Ltd [1980] 1 Lloyd's Rep 406