Summary

Delict law and insurance are closely associated in a complicated manner, mutually influencing their development and daily implementation. Paragraph 1 of § 140 of the Law of Obligations Act, compared to the regulation in Paragraph 2 of § 462 of the Estonian SSR Civil Code, considerably extended the discretional right of the court in determining the obligation for compensating damage. The handling of the right of consideration by the courts is difficult to predict. Various analysts have expressed the opinion that the abstract generalisations of the codes often have to be transformed into concrete rules, particularly if there is a desire to encourage extra-judicial solutions. Currently, there are no guidelines, either theoretical or practical, for the implementation of the relevant provisions of the Law of Obligations Act.

The aim of the article is to provide an answer to the question as to the effect of insurance on the fair reduction of damage compensation, and as to whether the obligation of damage compensation regarding the injured party and the insurer of the injured party is different. As a result of a comparative analysis of the German, Austrian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish and British regulations, the author of the article gives her opinion as to how the relevant norms of the Law of Obligations Act should be interpreted and implemented.