What is the current state of the law on the duty of an underwriter to disclose all material facts?

Ontario, Canada


The following excerpt is from Pereira v. Hamilton Township Farmers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company, 2006 CanLII 12284 (ON CA):

In Silva v. Sizoo, [1997] O.J. No. 4910 (S.C.J.), Lane J., in his usual careful and thorough manner, canvassed the jurisprudence on this issue and at para. 97 drew the following conclusion, which I take to be a correct statement of the law: “In summary, these cases show that the rule that insureds are bound to disclose all material facts on pain of having the policy avoided is alive and well. It is, as it always has been, subject to some exceptions. An insured need not disclose what the insurer actually knows, nor that which is so notorious in the industry or place concerned that any competent underwriter in the field would know it. There is a duty on an insurer not to close his eyes to the obvious, to that which is tantamount to notice; and not to refrain from asking because he prefers not to know the answer to a question which stares him in the face. There may be others, I do not pretend to be exhaustive. But there is no general duty owed by an underwriter to an applicant for coverage to conduct a reasonable investigation or otherwise to act as a reasonably competent underwriter. “Plaintiff may not shift the burden of truthfulness which was upon the insured into a burden of distrust and additional inquiry on the part of the defendant” [emphasis added, citations omitted].

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