Be careful when moving!
8. May 2022
Woof woof (and meow)!
1. June 2022Be careful when moving!
8. May 2022Woof woof (and meow)!
1. June 2022
A Trip with Consequences!
On a beautiful summer day, you leave the house with your family to go get some ice cream. The ice cream shop closes in 20 minutes, so you have to hurry... Everyone’s ready, you grab your money, and off you go. But in the rush, the windows on the ground floor of the house weren’t closed, making it easy for a thief to break in. What a terrible incident! But is that covered by insurance?!
The policyholder’s actions are classified according to varying degrees of fault (nature and manner). A clear distinction is made between slight and gross negligence and intent. However, the insurance company does not have free discretion in this matter. For every claim, an assessment is made to determine whether the damage could have been avoided or whether the policyholder may even have acted intentionally.
A person acts negligently if they have failed to fulfill their duty of care (Section 276 of the German Civil Code [BGB]), but did not intend to cause any damage. This means that they were unaware of the consequences of their actions or could have prevented the damage. Often, one’s mind is simply elsewhere, or one is inattentive for just a moment, and the mishap has already occurred. Here, a distinction is made between gross and slight negligence; the determination depends on the severity of the act or its consequences.
Slight negligence in the context of insurance: You and a friend are looking at old photos together on a cell phone. You want to take a closer look at one photo and pick up his cell phone. Unfortunately, it slips out of your hand and falls to the ground. In this case, neither the consequences are clear nor did you intentionally drop the cell phone.
In cases of gross negligence, the scenario described above applies. The windows were not left open on purpose, but the consequences are clearly evident, and due care was not exercised. With DEVK, this situation would be covered under the household property insurance policy.
If a person acts intentionally to cause damage, this is considered willful misconduct. You can insure yourself against many things in the insurance sector, but in the case of willful acts, you won’t receive a single cent from the insurance company. There is a general exclusion in such cases, and you must bear the costs yourself. Someone acts with intent, for example, if—out of anger at a neighbor who was once again partying too loudly in the yard over the weekend—they scratch the neighbor’s car with a key and deliberately damage it. In this case, the action is taken with pure intent, and the person is fully aware of the consequences!