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Nathalie Taiana
![A legal opinion confirms the catering industry: Insurance companies must ...]()
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A legal opinion confirms the catering industry: Insurance companies must …
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keystone-sda.ch
![... also cover the breakdowns of restaurants that had to close due to the corona pandemic.]()
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… also cover the breakdowns of restaurants that had to close due to the corona pandemic.
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Zvg
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Insurance ombudsman Martin Lorenzon commissioned the report: “It was always important to find amicable solutions promptly and thus prevent processes”.
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Manuel Geisser
![The Axa also does this, offering its customers individual comparison solutions.]()
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The Axa also does this, offering its customers individual comparison solutions.
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Controversial report in the dispute between insurance companies and their customers, including many picklers and restaurants. It is about exclusion from cover for epidemic insurance. The report says: Insurers cannot hide behind the term pandemic. Lucerne law professor Walter Fellmann (64) wrote the report. He is an expert in liability and insurance law.
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However, some insurance clauses are so imprecise that they would make clear handling difficult. The opinion was commissioned by the Ombudsman for Private Insurance and Suva to deal with selected insurance clauses from epidemic insurance.
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Unclear contractual clauses
The media release states that legal expert Fellmann comes to the conclusion that “the finding of a pandemic by the WHO in Switzerland has no legal impact”. In his opinion, various contractual clauses that provide for exclusion in the event of a pandemic are unusual or unclear.
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The ombudsman now wants to use the report to reach an agreement between insured and insurance companies. Since the lockdown ordered by the Federal Council in mid-March, around 400 inquiries from insured persons have been received by the ombudsman. Without amicable solutions, the courts would ultimately have to decide whether controversial cover refusals are permissible in individual cases or not.
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Insurance ombudsman Martin Lorzenon (57) told BLICK: “It was always important to me to find timely, friendly solutions and thus prevent processes”. The insurance industry now seems to have largely grasped this.
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Pleasure with the innkeepers
The industry association Gastrosuisse rejoices: he himself commissioned an expert opinion, which is now supported by Fellmann’s expert opinion. The association had publicly denounced the behavior of the insurers and had now achieved partial success.
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Gastrosuisse points out that various companies such as Basler Versicherung, Esurance and Mobiliar have now agreed to pay for the damage caused by the corona virus after the officially ordered closure of the restaurants.
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Helvetia also submitted a “substantial offer”. At the end of March, the chairwoman of her board of directors showed the cold shoulder to the innkeepers at “SonntagsBlick”.
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Only Generali distances herself
At the request of BLICK, the Axa insurance company said: “We take note of the report commissioned by the insurance ombudsman”. However, the insurance remains with its previous position: “Our epidemic insurance product was never intended to bear the financial consequences of a pandemic.”
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Nevertheless, a lot has happened at Axa, because the insurance company knows exactly what the costs of legal disputes can be. “However, since we do not consider lengthy legal disputes in the interest of our customers in view of the unique and serious economic situation that was caused by the corona pandemic, we pragmatically accommodate the affected catering establishments with a comparison solution on an individual basis,” writes Axa.
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Generali is therefore the only major insurance company that does not seem to have a heart for the needs of the hospitality industry: “Generali distances itself from this report, among other things because the ombudsman did not submit our insurance conditions to the expert for assessment.” In particular, Generali defends itself against the accusation of unclearly formulated insurance terms.
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After all: Generali has given the ombudsman an undertaking to examine every case submitted to the ombudsman in detail and to take all circumstances of the individual case into account.
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