Definition
A clause appearing in policies of insurance — most commonly in the phrase "to whom it may concern" or "for whom it may concern" — that extends coverage to any person who holds an insurable interest in the subject matter of the policy at the time the insurance takes effect and who was contemplated, at least generally, by the party procuring the policy. The clause functions as a flexible placeholder for insured parties whose identity is uncertain, unspecified, or potentially multiple at the moment the policy is written.
The clause most frequently appears in marine and fire insurance contexts. Its legal effect is to allow the named policyholder to bind the insurer to cover not just themselves but other parties with an insurable interest — provided those parties were within the contemplation of the person effecting the insurance. The clause does not extend coverage to any and all strangers who may later acquire an interest; the element of prior contemplation limits its reach.
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Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "To whom it may concern" is a conventional salutation used in formal correspondence when the writer does not know the identity of the specific recipient — a letter of recommendation, a notice, or a general announcement addressed to no particular person.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): The phrase appears as standard epistolary form — a general address meaning "to whatever person this applies to" — with no specialized legal content attached.
The gap is significant. In ordinary English, the phrase is purely procedural, a polite substitute for an unknown addressee. In insurance law, it is a term of art with substantive consequences: it defines the scope of who is insured, activates the doctrine of insurable interest as a limiting principle, and determines which parties may bring a claim under the policy. A researcher encountering the phrase in a historical insurance document should not read it as a mere formality.
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Common Confusion
"May concern" clauses are sometimes confused with open policies or blanket policies. An open or floating marine policy covers an undefined set of future shipments and is adjusted as declarations are made. A "to whom it may concern" clause, by contrast, concerns the identity of insured parties rather than the identity of insured property or voyages. The two devices may appear in the same instrument, which compounds the confusion. Researchers should also distinguish the clause from an assignment of a policy: an assignment transfers a specific insured's rights after the fact, while a "may concern" clause builds multi-party coverage into the policy from inception.
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Why It Matters in Research
The primary research challenge with this clause is that it rarely appears as a standalone doctrinal category in indices. Nineteenth-century digests and treatises typically subordinate it under marine insurance, insurable interest, or fire insurance headings. Researchers searching for "may concern" directly will often come up empty in historical finding aids; searching under "insurable interest" and "policy — parties insured" is more productive.
The clause has particular significance in the maritime context, where merchants, factors, agents, and consignees might all hold shifting interests in the same cargo at different points in a voyage. Courts construing these clauses in the nineteenth century wrestled with the scope of "contemplation" — how specifically must the procuring party have had other potential insureds in mind? The New York courts, including the early Keyes reports cited in Rapalje & Lawrence, were active in this area. Researchers working in the New York equity and commercial law tradition should treat those reporters as a primary source layer.
In the fire insurance context, the clause arose frequently in situations involving mortgagors and mortgagees, bailors and bailees, and parties with contingent interests in real property. Whether a mortgagee was "contemplated" by a mortgagor who purchased a policy to whom it may concern was a recurring litigation question. This connects the clause to the broader insurable interest doctrine and, in property insurance, to questions about how covenants and encumbrances affect the insured's relationship to the property — making the property_78 encyclopedia entry on real covenants a useful methodological parallel for researchers tracing interest-based limitations in insurance instruments.
Be alert to the fact that the phrase appears in non-insurance documents in the historical corpus — land records, general notices, certificates — where it carries only its ordinary meaning. Context is determinative.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's definition is the most precise available in the historical dictionaries: coverage extends to those with an insurable interest at the time of effecting the insurance who were then contemplated by the procuring party. The two-part test (insurable interest plus prior contemplation) is well captured. Bouvier cites Parsons on Maritime Law, which is the authoritative nineteenth-century treatise reference for this doctrine and remains a reliable anchor for historical research.
Rapalje & Lawrence does not define the clause directly but cross-references it to several parallel constructions that appeared in insurance and commercial contracts — "on account of whom it may concern," "on all or either," "on board," and "on arrival." This cross-reference pattern is itself instructive: it signals that nineteenth-century practitioners understood "may concern" as part of a family of flexible coverage and contract clauses used to address uncertainty about parties, interests, and conditions at the time of contracting. Researchers should treat these related phrases as members of the same doctrinal cluster when tracing the history of open-ended insurance and commercial contract language.
Neither dictionary provides extended analysis of how courts resolved disputes about the scope of "contemplation," which is where the real doctrinal development occurred. For that, the case law — particularly New York and Massachusetts commercial courts, and English decisions from Campell's Nisi Prius Reports and East's Reports — supplies what the dictionaries omit.
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Jurisdictional Note
The clause was litigated with particular frequency in New York and Massachusetts commercial courts during the nineteenth century, and those jurisdictions' case law shapes much of the American doctrine. English admiralty and common law courts, especially as reported in East and Campbell, remain foundational for the maritime branch. Modern insurance codes in most U.S. jurisdictions have substantially codified insurable interest requirements, partially displacing the common law "contemplation" analysis.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
property_78: Real Covenants — Creation, Requirements (Writing, Intent, Touch and Concern, Privity) (The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia) — relevant for the parallel analytical structure of interest-based limitations and the "touch and concern" requirement, which shares conceptual architecture with the insurable interest limitation in "may concern" insurance clauses.
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