It is fundamental to the concept of insurance that it only insures a fortuity not a certainty. There is no cover under the policy if the insured deliberately damages the insured property. But what if the insured is suffering from a mental illness?
The decision of the English High Court in Porter v Zurich [2009] EWHC 376 sets out, for the first time, the degree of mental illness required for an insured to recover under a policy where the insured deliberately damages the insured property.
Mr Porter was suffering from mental illness. He deliberately set fire to his property to commit suicide. He escaped during the fire and survived. The Court held that the insured must meet the test for criminal insanity as set out in the M'Naghten's case, namely:
'... at the time of committing the act, the party accused was labouring under such defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the quality of the act he was doing; or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong'.
It was not sufficient to show that the insured suffered from a pre-existing and persisting delusional disorder in association with depressive episodes at the time.
On the psychiatric evidence, the Court found that Mr Porter knew what he was doing and that his actions were wrong. He failed to prove that he was criminally insane and he could not recover under the policy for damage to his property.
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