(a)  Every insurance provider doing business within this state shall require applicants for property insurance, real or personal, to disclose whether or not the applicant or applicants have been convicted of any degree of the crime of arson as described in chapter 4 of Title 11 within ten (10) years of the application date.

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Terms Used In Rhode Island General Laws 27-54-8

  • Conviction: A judgement of guilt against a criminal defendant.
  • Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
  • Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
  • person: may be construed to extend to and include co-partnerships and bodies corporate and politic. See Rhode Island General Laws 43-3-6

(b)  An insurance provider may use the existence of an arson conviction within ten (10) years as a reason to deny coverage.

(c)  Failure to disclose the existence of an arson conviction when requested upon an insurance application shall be a misdemeanor punishable by a sentence of not more than one year imprisonment.

(d)  The insurance application form shall indicate the existence of a criminal penalty for failure to disclose a conviction for arson.

(e)  For the purpose of this section, “applicant” means a natural person, trust, partnership, association, corporation, or other form of business organization; provided, that if the applicant is a trust, the beneficiaries of the trust shall be included, and if the applicant is a partnership, association, corporation, or other form of business organization, each member, director, shareholder owning more than twenty percent (20%) of the common stock issued by the corporation, and the principal officer of the corporation shall be included.

(f)  The provisions of this section do not apply to any policy with respect to highly protected risks. A “highly protected risk” means a fire resistive building that meets the highest standards of fire safety according to insurance company underwriting requirements.

History of Section.
P.L. 1995, ch. 63, § 2; P.L. 1997, ch. 226, § 1; G.L. 1956, § 27-54-11; P.L. 2005, ch. 175, § 3; P.L. 2005, ch. 410, § 13.