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2020 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

Digitalisation of Insurance Contract Law: Preliminary Thoughts with Special Regard to Insurer’s Duty to Advise

Author : Piotr Tereszkiewicz

Published in: InsurTech: A Legal and Regulatory View

Publisher: Springer International Publishing

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Abstract

This contribution discusses the way in which recent technological developments affect insurance contract law, in particular the insurer-policyholder relationship. The first part discusses instances of market innovation in the insurance sector and legislative reforms of insurance contract law that occurred in recent decades. The second part uses a specific example of the insurer’s duty to advise the policyholder as an illustration of how insurance law regulation embraced digital transactions.

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previous chapter Smart Contracts in Insurance: A Law and Futurology Perspective

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EIOPA (2017a).

Capgemini (2017).

EIOPA (2017b), p. 80.

Results are based on a Gallup Panel Web and mail study completed by 18,039 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted between 4 December 2013 and 14 January 2014.

Helveston (2016).

European Commission (2016).

In Italy, blackbox tracking devices were integrated in approximately 15% of the motor insurance contracts underwritten in 2015, EIOPA (2017a), p. 8.

Capgemini (2017), p. 31.

Capgemini (2017), p. 31; EIOPA (2017a), p. 8.

For an overview, see Basedow (2015), pp. 44 et seq.

See under http://restatement.info/.

Basedow et al. (2015).

On possible functions of PEICL, Fontaine (2011), pp. 39 et seq.

On which, see Feinman (2015).

Such as interpretation of insurance contract, misrepresentation or fraud by policyholder, see Feinman (2015).

Heiss (2012).

European Commission (2016).

Heiss (2012).

E.g. the celebrated English case Carter v. Boehm (1766) 3 Burr. 1906, 1909, per Lord Mansfield.

Clarke (1997), p. 90.

EIOPA (2017a), p. 4.

For a view of insurance as relational contract, see Feinman (2009), p. 553; Tereszkiewicz (2013), p. 235.

Insurance Mediation Directive 2002/92/EC of 9 December 2002 (2003) OJ L9/3.

Loacker (2015).

Loacker (2015), p. 287.

Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), OJ L 119, 4.5.2016, pp. 1–88.

Insurance Mediation Directive 2002/92/EC of 9 December 2002 (2003) OJ L9/3.

IMD Preamble, Considerations 7 and 8.

See Article 2(3) IMD. IMD fell short of imposing parallel duties on insurers as such. Cf. Langer and Rosenow (2006), p. 195.

See the IMD Preamble, Consideration 9; Tereszkiewicz (2013), p.239.

Moloney (2008), p. 254, calls this rule: “a quasi-know-your-client requirement”; see also Tereszkiewicz (2013), p. 239–240.

Directive 2004/39/EC OJ (2004) L145/1 (‘MiFID’) and Commission Directive 2006/73/EC OJ (2006) L241/26 (‘MiFID Level 2 Directive).

For a comprehensive study of MiFID regulatory techniques see: Moloney (2008), chapters 4, 5.

Cousy (2008), p. 505.

In favour of extending this duty on to insurers, Cousy (2008), p. 505.

Gesetz zur Reform des Versicherungsvertragsrechts vom 23. November 2007, BGBl. Teil I/2007, Nr. 59 vom 29.11.2007, 2634–2678.

See legislative materials BT-Drucks. 16/3945, 58. Ebers (2008) regards this as an instance of ‘Europeanisation of German insurance law’; I discussed the Europeanisation of German Insurane Contract Law in the context of the duty to advise in Tereszkiewicz (2013).

The English translation of this provision comes slightly adjusted from the English translation of the entire German Insurance Contract Act, accessible at the homepage of the German Insurance Association (GDV): http://www.gdv.de/Downloads/English/German_Insurance_Contract_Act_2008.pdf.

Wandt (2016), p. 130, supports his position with an excerpt of legislative materials to that effect, cf. BT-Drucks. 16/1935, 24; Bruns (2015), p. 77.

A so-called ‘Anlassbezogene Beratung’, a concept developed by German courts and endorsed in German scholarship, see Ebers (2008), Remark 3, with further references; Loacker (2015), pp. 245–247; Wandt (2016), pp. 130 et seq.

Wandt (2016), p 130.

Scholarship on VVG provides guidance as to factors triggering the duty to advise, see e.g. Pohlmann (2015), Remark 38 et seq; Ebers (2008), Remark 13 et seq. See also Wandt (2016), pp. 130–131.

BT-Drucks. 16/1935, 58; Bruns (2015), p. 78; Wandt (2016), p. 129.

Ebers (2008), Remark 54; Loacker (2015), p. 244.

Gesetz zur Umsetzung der Richtlinie (EU) 2016/97 des Europäischen Parlaments und des Rates vom 20. Januar 2016 über Versicherungsvertrieb und zur Änderung weiterer Gesetze, BGBl. I 2017 S. 2789.

See Heiss (2015), p. liii. with further references.

On possible functions of PEICL Fontaine (2011), pp. 39–41.

Batallier Grau (2014), p. 154.

See the Third Insurance Directives and the Directive on distance marketing of financial services (2002/65/EC), see Comment 1 to Article 2:201 PEICL.

Loacker (2015), p. 258.

Loacker (2015), p. 260, claims that instead of requiring such a proactive identification of the applicant’s most important needs, any activity of the insurer is conditioned and defined by the special circumstances of the individual case.

Armbrüster (2008), p. 788, claims that Article 2:202 PEICL obliges an insurer to make an enquiry about an applicant’s specific demands as to insurance cover as well as advising her hereabout; Tereszkiewicz (2013), 250–251.

Comment 4 to Article 2:202 PEICL.

Comment 4c to Article 2:202 PEICL.

Comment 4d to Article 2:202 PEICL.

Cf. Cousy (2009), p. 253. Loacker (2015), p. 260, stresses the ‘striking flexibility’ of the PEICL’s approach.

This is rightly emphasised by Loacker (2015), p. 262, who suggests that to close the emerging protection gap, it is advisable to interpret the PEICL under Article 1:104 in a way that promotes good faith during the contractual relationship as well.

Directive (EU) 2016/97 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 January 2016 on insurance distribution (recast), OJ L 26, 2.2.2016, pp. 19–59.

In particular Considerations 44 and 45 Directive 2016/97/UE.

Cf. Considerations 5–7 Directive 2016/97/UE.

Cf. Recital 6 and 8 IDD.

According to EIOPA (2014), p. 7, there was strong support among the EIOPA Members for comparison websites to be regulated in a harmonised manner across the EU under the Insurance Mediation Directive—Recast (IMD2).

EIOPA (2015).

See EIOPA (2014); see also the study of the Deutsches Institut für Service-Qualität (2015). Both studies draw attention to different risks faced by comparison site users.

Loacker (2015), p. 288.

EIOPA (2017b), p. 79.

See Bundesverband Deutscher Versicherungskaufleute (2016).

Judgment by Oberlandesgericht Munich of 6 April 2017, Case 29 U 3139/16, available under: http://www.gesetze-bayern.de/.

On possible meanings of ‘technology neutrality’ in legal discourse, see Maxwell and Bourreau (2015).

Kim (2014), p. 265. For a discussion of the EU law approach to unfair terms in on-line consumer contracts see Brownsword (2018).

Armbrüster C (2008) Das Versicherungsrecht im Common Frame of Reference. Zeitschrift für europäisches Privatrecht 16:775–812

Basedow J (2015) Entwicklungen des Versicherungsvertragsrechts in Europa. In: Schnyder AK (ed) Versicherungsvertragsgesetz: Rückblick und Zukunftsperspektiven. Helbing Lichtenhahn, Basel, pp 37–50

Basedow J, Birds J, Clarke M, Cousy H, Heiss H, Loacker LD (eds) (2015) Principles of European insurance contract law, 2nd edn. Otto Schmidt, Köln

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Title: Digitalisation of Insurance Contract Law: Preliminary Thoughts with Special Regard to Insurer’s Duty to Advise
Author: Piotr Tereszkiewicz
Publisher: Springer International Publishing
Book: InsurTech: A Legal and Regulatory View
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-27385-9

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-030-27386-6

Copyright Year: 2020
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27386-6_6