Export credit insurance

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Export credit insurance (including export insurance , export risk insurance or export credit guarantee ) is the collective term for composite insurance that the export risks of bad debts of accounts receivable from deliveries of goods and services secure.

General

Export-oriented states have an interest in exporters being able to export their goods and services without disruption. As suppliers, exporters assume a creditor function, with country risks being added to the typical creditor risks from cross-border export activities . These are made up of a transfer stop risk and a political risk. The States use to hedge these particular risks mostly independently organized export credit agencies ( English export credit agencies , ECA), a warranty or guarantee of the state awarded delivery-. These are agencies organized in a similar way to insurance, which - mostly on a legal basis - guarantee specific export transactions ("cover"). In the event of non-payment, the exporter benefiting from this will consequently receive compensation for the damage from ECA - with the exception of a deductible between 5% and 15% of the order value. In this way, exports are made possible which, without insurance, represent an excessive export risk and would therefore not take place.

Since export transactions with longer credit periods and / or with difficult markets can hardly be carried out without protection against these specific risks, all western industrialized countries, but also some developing and emerging countries, have state export credit insurance systems to support the exporters in their country. Export credit insurance is therefore an important state instrument for export promotion. Export credit guarantees are therefore insurances for export transactions, with which a payment default for economic or political reasons is avoided. The ECAs are mainly to be classified in terms of insurance, because their business has to do with the probability of default of claims and the probability of occurrence of state risks.

Types of insurance

Private credit insurers or state credit insurers can be used to hedge against export credit risks. The state insurers are mostly independent companies organized under private law that act on behalf of the respective state (mandataries). In Germany, Euler Hermes Aktiengesellschaft is the lead authorized by the Federal Republic of Germany to issue and receive all declarations relating to export guarantees in the name of, on behalf of and for the account of the federal government. For this reason, the term "Hermes Cover" has become popular in everyday language. Euler Hermes Germany also offers insurance for its own account and is therefore also active as a private credit insurance . The differences between private and state export credit insurance lie primarily in the scope of coverage of the insured business, while the insured person is regularly involved in damage with a so-called deductible (an uninsured deductible) for both types.

Private and state export insurance

If one examines the private and the state insurances with regard to the scope of insurance, then the private export credit insurances cover only the bad debt risk of the exporter in case of insolvency of his buyer. Under certain conditions, the risks of default in payment as well as the exporter's manufacturing risk and its risk of receivables in the event of non-acceptance of the goods can also be insured . The private-sector export credit insurances therefore only cover the economic risk in countries with stable economic and political conditions.

The coverage of political and transfer stop risks (country risks), however, is excluded by private credit insurances directly in the insurance conditions or indirectly because deliveries to importers in certain risky countries or groups of countries are not insured. According to the principle of subsidiarity , the state should only intervene where the private sector cannot or does not want to take over certain functions. That is the case when assuming country risks.

Types of insurance risk

It can be seen from this that a large number of risks arise in the area of ​​export transactions, which can be systematized as follows:

The manufacturing risk occurs when political or economic circumstances abroad prevent the completion or dispatch of the goods. The risk of an embargo has also been covered here since September 1966. When covering the manufacturing risk, the guarantee relates to losses in prime costs that the exporter incurs as a result of the early termination of the transaction. Manufacturing risk covers include the actual cost of the exporter. These are estimated by him in advance and the cover is based on the maximum amount.

  • Export risk

The export risk cover protects the exporter for the period between the dispatch of the goods or the beginning of the service and the receipt of the export claim. This also protects the importer's risk of insolvency . The insolvency (del credere) risk is therefore part of the export risk. The “protracted default” is also covered.

  • Financial credit risks

These arise when, at the request of the exporter, a domestic credit institution grants the foreign importer a delivery-related credit based on the export business (so-called buyer credit ). The finance credit cover then secures the financing credit institute the repayment along with interest on the credit granted to the importer.

  • Political Risks

State / official measures, warlike events, riot or revolution (so-called "general political damage"), transfer stop (impracticable conversion or restriction of the transfer of the amounts paid in by the debtor in local currency by restricting international payment transactions), impossibility of contract fulfillment for political reasons (see moratorium risk ) or the loss of goods before the transfer of risk through confiscation or destruction are political risks of an export and can be insured. The general political guarantee case occurs when legislative or official measures abroad prevent the fulfillment of the contractually owed deliveries and services in whole or in part and the exporter is therefore not entitled to the claims. The prerequisite for this is that shipping has already started.

Uninsurable risks

In addition to the punitive tariffs, a large number of other risks are not covered. Force majeure ( French force majeure ) are in the national and international trade unforeseeable, unavoidable events that all beyond the control of a commercial transaction are involved and the unavoidable under the circumstances, with appropriate, reasonable means were (z. B. fire , Floods , earthquakes , blockades, wars , civil wars , riots, revolutions , strikes , embargoes , confiscation of ships, piracy, etc.). The “force majeure clause” must expressly emphasize in the commercial contracts concerned that in cases of force majeure, claims from obligations do not apply. With regard to the scope of insurance, not all sub-cases of force majeure are covered, which is why the individual contractual exclusion of liability for these sub-cases through the "force majeure clause" is of crucial importance. Damage caused by nuclear energy or environmental impacts within the meaning of the Environmental Liability Act or the Water Resources Act is also not covered.

Inclusion of particular economic risks is only possible in exceptional cases and requires a separate individual decision by the export credit insurance. The coverage of economic risks is particularly considered if, due to the project structure or the conditions in the country of investment, a clear distinction between political and economic risks does not seem possible (e.g. former state trading countries).

Effects of a state export credit insurance

If political and transfer stop risks in particular are insured, exports to countries with high political and / or transfer stop risks can take place that would not be undertaken without export credit insurance. In this respect, export credit insurance is always a state-secured export promotion policy. In this way, the exporter is protected because he can cover the typical risks associated with an export, and the importer is given the opportunity to undertake certain imports in a country with high political and / or transfer stop risks.

If credit institutions are involved in such transactions within the framework of financial credit risks (e.g. through delivery-linked credits to the exporter to pre- finance the production phase up to the receipt of payment or through delivery-linked credits to the importer to finance the purchase price ), then these are also benefited from export credit insurance. Loans are neither directly nor indirectly affected by the poor country rating of the importer state , if, for example, Euler Hermes has taken out export credit insurance in favor of an importer state with a low rating . Euler Hermes acts as a mandate on behalf of and for the account of the Federal Republic of Germany, which has to take into account the contingent liability resulting from the export credit insurance in the federal budget . Then credit institutions can make use of the so-called surety substitution option by declaring the (better rated) Federal Republic of Germany to be the ultimate liability carrier because it has to pay in the event of liability (Art. 114, 137 f. Capital Adequacy Ordinance ). The substitution of surety leads at the bank to the fact that loans with an originally higher risk weight are replaced by the lower risk weight of the guarantor .

Export credit insurance of the Federal Republic of Germany

As early as 1949, the federal government commissioned two private companies, today's Euler Hermes AG and the likewise renamed C & L Deutsche Revision Aktiengesellschaft Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft GmbH , with the management of the export credit guarantees . Since Euler Hermes is in the lead in this partnership to this day, the term "Hermes Cover" has established itself in the business world.

Major international export credit insurers

In Switzerland, the Swiss Export Risk Insurance (SERV) is organized as a state institution, in Austria the Oesterreichische Kontrollbank AG acts as an export credit insurer. In the USA, export insurance is provided by the Foreign Credit Insurance Association (FCIA) and the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIMBANK), in France by the Compagnie Francaise d'Assecurance pour le Commerce Extérieur ( COFACE SA Public Procedures ). In Great Britain, there is no independent institution that handles the export insurance business, but the state authority Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD).

literature

  • General Terms and Conditions of Hermes Cover from February 2014 . (PDF file; 383 kB).
  • Federal Association of German Industry eV BDI: Receive export credit guarantees as competitive instruments for promoting foreign trade! BDI position on the revision of the "Common Approaches on Environment and Officially Supported Export Credits" . 2006 ( PDF , 149 kB).
  • Michael Glotzbach: The state export credit insurance in France and Germany. A comparative legal representation, taking into account the harmonization efforts in the common market. Duncker Humblot, Berlin 1973, ISBN 3-428-02974-7 ( studies on savings, giro and credit systems B 3), (at the same time: Mainz, Univ., Diss. 1971).
  • Siegfried Georg Häberle: Handbook of foreign trade financing. Textbook and reference work for industry, trade and banks as well as for business-oriented universities and schools. 2nd updated and expanded edition. Oldenbourg, Munich et al. 1998, ISBN 3-486-24104-4 .
  • Stefan Schaltegger, Matthias Schock, Cathrin Buttscher: Sustainability as a challenge for the export industry and export credit insurance. Importance and role of financing and environmental auditing in B2B business. Euler Hermes / PWC / CSM, Lüneburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-935630-77-1 , CSM Lüneburg .
  • Roland Scheibe, Eckhardt Moltrecht, Susanne Kuhn: guarantees & sureties. Federal export guarantees and legal prosecution abroad. Basic work. 2nd Edition. Bundesanzeiger Verlag, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-87156-474-5 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Definition of »export risk«. In : wirtschaftslexikon.gabler.de. Gabler Wirtschaftslexikon, accessed February 6, 2017 .
  2. ↑ [1] BWWi.de export guarantees
  3. ↑ Default in payment , ( English protracted default ) or total or partial bad debt loss ( English default ) due to insolvency
  4. ↑ cf. Fritz-Ulrich Jahrmann, Compendium of Practical Business Administration , 1998, p. 332
  5. ^ Working group "Revision of finance and accounting" of the German Institute for Internal Revision eV, Revision of the company insurance , 2000, p. 93
  6. ↑ Frank Pörschke, The private export credit insurance , 1991, p. 42, ISBN 3-88487-263-X . Because of the separation between insured and uninsured risks, it is of crucial importance whether the importer's insolvency was the result of his own creditworthiness or the political risk.
  7. ↑ The coverage of certain individual risks is explained here using the example of Euler Hermes AG. Other export credit insurances differ, in some cases considerably, from the possibility of passing on certain exporter risks
  8. ↑ § 4 Paragraph 3 General Conditions of Export Guarantees (AB –G-) of Euler Hermes AG from February 2014
  9. ↑ Section 4, Paragraph 4
  10. ↑ § 4 Paragraph 1 and Paragraph 2
  11. ↑ § 3 Paragraph 1
  12. ↑ Since punitive tariffs are not a factual, legal or economic impossibility, they are in any case not covered by the political risk
  13. ↑ Clemens Büter, Foreign Trade, 2007, p. 358