Insurance conditions
Insurance conditions are the agreements of an insurance contract and regulate the content of the contract .
meaning
Since insurance is not an objective product, but an abstract product that is represented solely by the legal provisions of the contract, the insurance conditions have a special meaning compared to normal contractual agreements. The subject of the contract only arises through the insurance conditions. In a normal sales contract, on the other hand, only the processing modalities of the transfer of ownership of an object that is only specified there are regulated. The agreements in an insurance contract are therefore given a special name.
Since insurance is a collective business in which large numbers of similar risks are offset collectively, the insurance contracts of the insurers must be as uniform as possible. To this end, insurers use the same insurance conditions for all contracts as far as possible. There is only a very limited possibility of deviating from this in individual cases. Therefore, the agreements of the insurance contracts are called conditions , since the insurers only grant insurance cover under these conditions .
Legal Limits
The content of an insurance contract is not exclusively determined by the insurance conditions that have been agreed. As with every contract, the regulations of the German Civil Code and other statutory provisions must be observed. In particular, the Insurance Contract Act regulates the content of an insurance contract.
General and special insurance conditions
Within the insurance conditions, a distinction is made between the general insurance conditions (AVB) and the special insurance conditions. General insurance conditions are those insurance conditions that have the character of general terms and conditions, that is, they are used for a large number of contracts. Special insurance conditions are those insurance conditions that have been specifically agreed between the contracting parties in individual cases.
However, the use of language in practice does not correspond to the legal one. In practice, only part of the AVB is actually listed under the title General Insurance Conditions in the contract document, the insurance policy . In fact, the provisions of the contract listed under the heading Special Insurance Conditions are often also AVB. Most of the other provisions, which are often distributed over the remaining parts of the contract document, are also general terms and conditions, possibly also provisions in the application or in information that are not externally part of the contract document. Special, i.e. individually agreed insurance conditions are often added by hand or in an appendix to the contract document.
Sample conditions
The model terms and conditions issued by insurance company associations are non-binding recommendations.