Opinion ID: 2621198
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reliance on insurance policy cases

Text: The court's opinion relies on cases involving insurance policy provisions that reduce the time for suit. [47] Classifying this tour contract as an adhesion contract, it reasons that cases concerning time-for-suit clauses in insurance policies are relevant. [48] Even if Long's contract were a contract of adhesion, our insurance cases would be irrelevant. Insurance policies are sui generis in Alaska. [49] Our unique treatment of insurance policies and insurers originates in the fiduciary relationship between insurers and their insureds. [50] There is no such relationship between a tour operator and its client. And underlying our insurance cases are the insureds' reasonable expectations: the expectation of coverage. Insurance has one fundamental purpose, protecting against loss. That is why insureds buy it. In comparison, a tour client's reasonable expectations focus on the tour itself. There is no basis for thinking that a tour client has any reasonable expectations whatsoever about the procedures for making a claim if an injury occurs. In a tour contract, neither the inherent nature of the parties' relationship nor the purchaser's reasonable expectations resemble their counterparts that drive our analysis in insurance cases. There are other relevant differences. There is nothing fundamentally mystifying about tour contracts compared to the subtleties of insurance policies. Insurance is a heavily regulated industry. Insurance policies often follow standardized forms, subject to agency approval in some states. [51] Their terms, if not impenetrable, are not self-evident. Most insureds would rather visit the dentist than read an insurance policy for content. And human nature makes it more likely that a purchaser will read a tour contract, whose purpose presages pleasure, than an insurance policy, whose purpose connotes misfortune. Tour clients are consequently more likely to read and understand their tour contracts. [52] Long's contract was simply for a vacation tour. I would not treat it like we treat insurance policies. [53] Moreover, I doubt that this contract met the second prerequisite for a contract of adhesion. Just because it was a standard form printed contract[ ] prepared by one party and submitted to the other on a `take-it-or-leave-it' basis, [54] does not mean it was an adhesion contract. [55] The transaction should be one which as a practical matter is essential, or nearly so, from the standpoint of the weaker party. [56] A tour is not an essential transaction, unlike insurance. Finding both prerequisites, we have held that insurance contracts are contracts of adhesion. [57] We have consequently enforced limitation provisions in insurance contracts only when they serve the purpose for which they were included in the contract. [58] We require insurers seeking to enforce time-for-suit clauses in insurance policies to demonstrate prejudice. [59] That is because an untimely claim would altogether defeat coverage and would therefore defeat the insured's reasonable expectations and the whole purpose for purchasing the policy. But a time-for-suit clause in a tour contract does not defeat the client's reasonable expectation, which is that the tour take place as promised. And the non-fiduciary relationship cannot be the source of imposing a special duty on the tour operator to prove prejudice to enforce the clause. [60] Finally, one of the Alaska insurance cases cited by the court's opinion supports my conclusion that contractually adopting a one-year claim period that begins to run when the cause of action accrues is not contrary to public policy, even in an insurance context. In Fireman's Fund Insurance Co. v. Sand Lake Lounge, Inc . the insurance policy contained a one-year claim deadline. [61] But we held that this deadline was not itself unreasonable, so long as it was read to begin running not on the date of the fire, but on the date the cause of action accrued, when the fire insurer denied coverage. [62] That holding is inconsistent with the analysis that the court's opinion applies here.