loss

The requirement that losses be deducted in the year in which they are sustained calls for a practical test. The loss 'must be actual and present.

In insurance. The destruction of or damage to the insured subject by the perils insured against, according to the express provisions and construction of the contract. These accidents, or misfortunes, or per-' ils, as they are usually denominated, are all distinctly enumerated in the policy. And no loss, however great or unforeseen, can be a loss within the policy unless it be the direct and immediate consequence of one or more of these perils. Marsh. Ins. 1, e. 12. Loss under a life policy is simply the death of the subject by a cause the risk of which is not expressly excepted in the policy, and where the loss is not fraudulent, as where one assured, who assures the life of another for his own benefit, procures the death. Loss in insurance against fire must, under the usual form of policy, be by the partial or total destruction or damage of the thing insured by fire. In maritime insurance, in which loss by fire is one of the risks usually included, the loss insured against may be absolutely or constructively total, or a partial or general average loss, or a particular average. A partial loss is any loss or damage short of, or not amounting to, a total loss; for if it be not the latter, it must be the former. See 4 Mass. 374; 6 Mass. 102, 122, 317; 12 Mass. 170, 288; 8 Johns. (N. Y.) 237; 10 A total loss is such destruction of, or damage to, the thing insured that it is of little or no value to the owner. Partial losses are sometimes denominated average losses, because they are often in the nature of those losses which are the subject of average contributions; and they are distinguished Into general and particular averages. See "Average." Total losses, in maritime insurance, are absolutely such when the entire thing perishes or becomes of no value. Constructively, a loss may become total where the value remaining is of such a small amount that the whole may be surrendered. See "Abandonment." Consult Phil. Ins.; Arnold, Ind.; Pars. Mar. Law. See "Total Loss."

In insurance. The injury or damage sustained by the insured in consequence of the happening of one or more of the accidents or misfortunes against which the insurer, in consideration of the premium, has undertaken to indemnify the insured. 1 Bouv. Inst do. 1215.

— Actual loss. One resulting from the real and substantial destruction of the property insured.

— Constructive loss. One resulting from such injuries to the property, without its destruction, as render it valueless to the assured or prevent its restoration to the original condition except at a cost exceeding its value.

— Direct loss by fire. one resulting immediately and proximately from the fire, and not remotely from some of the consequences or effects of the fire. Insurance Co. v. Leader, 121 Ga. 260, 48 S. E. 974; Ermentrout v. Insurance Co., 63 Minn. 305, 65 N. W. 635, 30 In R. A. 346, 56 Am. St. Rep. 481; California Ins. Co. v. Union Compress Co., 133 U. S. 387, 10 Sup. Ct. 365, 33 L. Ed. 730,

— Loss of consortium. See Consortium.

— Partial loss. A loss of a part of a thing or of its value, or any damage not amounting (actually or constructively) to its entire destruction; as contrasted with total loss. Partial loss is one in which the damage done to the thing insured is not so complete as to amount to a total loss, either actual or constructive. In every such case the underwriter is liable to pay such proportion of the sum which would he payable on total loss as the damage sustained by the subject of insurance bears to the whole value at the time of insurance. 2 Steph. Comm. 132, 133; Crump. Ins. § 331; Mozley & Whitley. Partial loss implies a damage sustained by the Ship or cargo, which falls upon the respective owners of the property so damaged ; and, when happening from any peril insured against by the policy, the owners are to be indemnified by the underwriters, unless in cases excepted by the express terms of the policy. Padelford v. Boardman, 4 Mass. 548; Globe Ins. Co. v. Sherlock, 25 Ohio St. 65; Willard v. Insurance Co., 30 Mo. 35.

— Salvage loss. In the language of marine underwriters, this term means the difference between the amount of salvage, after deducting the charges, and the original value of the property insured. Devitt v. Insurance Co., 6l App. Div. 390, 70 N. Y. Supp. 662; Koons v. La Fonciere Compagnie (D. Ct) 71 Fed. 981.

— Total loss. See that title.

1. Privation; injury; damage. See Damage; Damages. A community of profits implies a community of losses: losses are, in a sense, nothing more than a diminution of profits.^ 2. Dam^e to or the entire destruction of an insured subject by a contemplated peril. Actual loss. Where there is a real destruction of the subject. Constructive loss, or constructive total loss. When the injury is so great that the insured may abandon the remnant to the insurer. Partial loss. When the subject is damaged but not destroyed. Total loss. When the subject is wholly destroyed. Total loss. The total destruction of the thing insured; also, such damage to the thing, though it may remain in specie, as renders it of little or no value to the owner. ' Actual total loss. When the subject insured wholly perishes, or its recovery is rendered irretrievably hopeless.*- It is not necessary to a total loss that there be an absolute extinction or destruction of the thing insured, so that nothing can be delivered. A destruction in specie, so that while some of its component elements or parts may remain, the thing which was insm-ed, in the character or description by which it was insured, is destroyed, is a total loss.^ As applicable to a building, means, not that its materials were utterly destroyed, but that the building, though part of it remains standing, has lost its identity and specific character as a building, and, instead, has become a brolcen mass, or cannot longer properly be designated as a building. Absolute extinction is not meant. "Wholly destroyed" may be an equivalent expression.* As long as a vessel exists in specie in the hands of the owner, although she may require repairs greater tlian her value, a case of *' utter loss," within the meaning of a bottomry and respondentia bond, does not arise and she continues subject to the hypothecation.^ I See 3 Bl. Com. 38, 45, 56. ' Priest V. Chouteau, 13 Mo. Ap. 856 (1882). ' [Livermore v. Newburyport Mar. Ins. Co., 1 Mass. *279 (1804), Sedgwick, J. • Burt V. Brewers', &c. Ins. Co., 9 Hun, 384 (1876); Biurill's Law Diet. ' Great Western Ins. Co. u Fogarty, 19 Wall. 640, 643 (1873), cases. Miller, J. • [Oshkosh Packing, &o. Co. v. Mercantile Ins. Co., 31 F. E. 204 (1887), Dyer, J.; May, Ins. § 421 o, cases; 1 Wood, Ins. § 107, cases. " Freight " may be lost in the sense that by reason of the perils insured against the ship has been prevented from earning freight; and, also, in the sense that it is lost to the owner, after it has been earned, by some circumstance unconnected with the contract between the assured and the underwriters on the freight.' See Avkkage; Indemnity; Insurance; Ooctjb. Proof of loss. A written and sworn statement, made to an insurance company by the beneficiary, of the fact of a loss. In fire insurance, analogous to the "protest" in marine insurance. The time when the loss occurred, the cause of it, the value of the property, the name of the owner, incumbrances, and like facts, are usually required to be furnished. Waiver of "preliminary proof of loss" by an insurer may be proved indirectly by circumstances, as well as by direct proof; and so also may authority in an agent to make the waiver be proved.^ Preliminary proof of a death is not required, when the insurer, on being notified thereof, denies his liability and declares that the insiu-ance will not be paid.^

Is used somewhat technically in the law of insurance, and more particularly in marine insurance, to mean the injury or destruction of the thing insured by one of the contemplated perils; the occurrence of the casualty insured against, and consequent damage. Losses, in this sense, are total or partial, according as the subject insured is considered to be wholly destroyed, or only injured. They are called actual or constructive, according as there is a real destruction, or only such injury as entitles the assured to abandon the remnant to the insurer, and claim the full value.