Summary

In the case of an insurance contract, the insurer, in the event of an agreed case, undertakes to pay a sum of money – the insurance premium – to pay the insured person a sum of money or its equivalent. Liability insurance is a special subcategory of insurance, in particular, non-life insurance, in which the insurer compensates the insured for the damage caused to the insured due to the fact that he or she is liable to a third party and therefore has the obligation to compensate for the damage caused. The nature of liability insurance is the existence of a trilateral legal relationship in which the liability insurer, the policyholder or the insured person, and the injured party are parties.

Although, in particular, it should be the policyholder’s interest to secure himself or herself against his or her own liability costs, liability insurance is made compulsory by law in a number of areas. From State interference in the decision on whether to insure responsibility or not, it follows that the sole purpose of liability insurance is not always to protect the insured person. In many cases, liability insurance must also provide security to the injured person. Therefore, the legal orders offer several guarantees to the injured party in the area of liability insurance. Whether the law gives the injured party direct action against the insurer of the person who caused damage is an important indicator of who must be protected by liability insurance: either the policyholder, i.e. the party that caused the damage, in the form of the loss of his or her property due to the satisfaction of claims, or the injured person, in order to ensure compensation for the damage caused to him or her irrespective of the proprietary capacity of the injuring party.