Inherent Vice

Inherent vice is an object's tendency to deteriorate.

Ray Burnham, in his most excellent, Burnham's Insurance Dictionary, uses examples of meat putrefying, iron rusting, and people aging.

Property insurance almost always excludes inherent vice, though most policy forms do not use the term.

The ISO property form excludes inherent vice with the following words:

"Rust or other corrosion, decay, deterioration,
hidden or latent defect or any
quality in property that causes it to damage
or destroy itself;"

Class dismissed.