As an applicant for insurance is under a duty1 to disclose all material information to the insurer when seeking to obtain,2 renew3 or vary4 an insurance policy, he may be obliged to disclose information known5 to him concerning any offences of which he, or someone associated with him, has been convicted or suspected of committing. Should such an obligation arise, failure to disclose this information will render the policy issued to the applicant voidable at the insurer’s option. The purpose of this article is to examine the kinds of information relating to criminal and traffic offences, generically referred to herein as “criminal information”, that an applicant must disclose in order to fulfil the duty of disclosure. This application of the duty has been the subject of a number of recent decisions in England and Australia. These indicate that, although there may have been some change in public attitudes to the significance of certain convictions, exemplified by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, the relevance of criminal information to the formation of insurance contracts has not diminished.

The duty of disclosure requires an applicant to disclose “material” information. In Lambert v. Co-operative Insurance Society Ltd.6 it was finally established that “material” in this context is to be defined by reference to the views of a prudent