INSURABLE INTEREST. Such an interest in a subject of insurance as will en title the person possessing it to obtain in surance.
2. It is essential to the contract of insu rance, as distinguished from a wager, that the assured should have a legally recognizable interest in the insured subject, the pecuniary value of which may be appreciated and com puted or valued. It is not requisite that the Insured party should have an absolute pro perty in the insured subject, or that the sub ject or interest should be one that can be exclusively possessed or be transferable by tra dition or assignment. The subject or interest must, however, be such that it may be de stroyed, lost, damaged, diminished, or inter cepted by the risks insured against. The interests usually insured are those of the owner in any species of property, of mort gagor, mortgagee, holder of bottomry or re spondentia bond, of an agent, consignee, lessee, factor, carrier, bailee, or party having a lien or entitled to a rent or income, or being liable to a loss depending upon certain con ditions or contingencies, or having the cer tainty or probability of a profit or pecuniary benefit depending on the insured subject. 1
Phillips, Ins. c. 3 ; 11 Eng. L. & Eq. 2 ; 28 id. 312 ; 34 id. 116 ; 48 id. 292 ; 5 N. Y. 151; 19 id. 184 ; 11 Penn. St. 429 ; 10 Cush. Mass. 37 ; 6 Gray, Mass. 192; 2 Md. 111 ; 13 B.
Monr. Ky. 311 ; 16 id. 242; 5 Sneed, Tenn. 139.
3. The certainty or probability, direct or incidental, of pecuniary benefit by the living, or pecuniary loss or damage to any one by the decease, of another, gives an insurable interest in his life. 1 Phillips, Ins. c. 3, sec. xiv. ; 10 Cush. Mass. 244 ; 22 Penn. 65 ; 27 id. 268 ; 23 Conn. 244 ; 22 Barb. N. Y. 9 ; 28 Mo. 383 ; 28 Eng. L. & Eq. 312.
The amount of insurable interest is the value of the insured subject as agreed by the policy, or its market value, or the pecuniary loss to which the assured is liable by the risks insured against, though the insured subject—for example, life or health—has not a market value. 2 Phillips, Ins. c. 14 ; 13 Barb. N. Y. 206 ; 7 N. Y. 530 ; 13 id. 31 ; 24 N. H. 234; 2 Parsons, Marit. Law, c. 2, sec. 2.