New BU reference work conceived from the benefit case

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Paper is known to be patient, and it is also known that there is nothing older than yesterday’s newspaper. Viewed from this perspective, it is always amusing when books are published that deal with the current rate landscape of an insurance product.

Philip Wenzel (Image: Doris Köhler)

With the current corona pandemic affecting all of us, at least we all hope that it is a temporary phenomenon and that everything will soon be the same as it was before. So why is there a need for a book about “occupational disability insurance in times of corona and pandemics”, as it has now been published by the Dortmund lawyer Kai-Jochen Neuhaus?

Summary of BU insurance

But, to use the vernacular a third time, one should of course not judge a book by its cover. On the one hand, the content of this work deals with the effects of the pandemic on occupational disability (BU) insurance. On the other hand, it can also be read as an easily readable summary of many important questions about BU insurance using the example of Corona – and is therefore also timeless.

As such an overview, the book helps the inclined policyholder who wants to deal with the product more intensively. But it is also useful for intermediaries who do not have to deal with the product group on a regular basis in day-to-day business.

Resign from profession to avoid infection

For example, dealing with the concept of occupational disability due to illness is very exciting. Here the question arises whether a BU would also exist if one resigns from his job in order to avoid infection.

In this case, no infection clause would help, as the insured would have to be infectious himself. And the BU term would also require the understanding of the average policyholder that it must be he who could infect others, and not the other way around.

But in court it always depends on the individual case. And so, according to Neuhaus, preventive work stoppage for fear of infection can lead to occupational disability “if a high health risk for the insured coincides with a high workplace-related risk of infection” (in the book, page 71).

Does the insured person have to be sick?

Strictly speaking, the wording of the § 172 VVG does not require that it has to be the insured person who is ill. She just has to be unable to work because of illness. But this (very free) interpretation by the author of these lines would certainly contradict the understanding of many others as well as the meaning of the paragraph.

In the end, for all mind games, as stimulating or entertaining as they may be, the forecast period of six months BU must still be fulfilled. And this is currently only conceivable in extreme exceptional cases, despite all the pandemic burden. But who knows what the future will bring.

Permanent consequential damage cannot yet be assessed

It is also remarkable how the author of the book assesses the infection with regard to future benefit cases. According to Neuhaus, a harmless course of an infection is also notifiable, as we cannot yet foresee what permanent consequential damage the patients will suffer. And as long as we did not know this, it would not be advisable for the insurer to take the subject lightly.

(Image: BoD-Verlag)

That thought is extremely interesting. It would be conceivable to collect a collective surcharge in the next few years in order to distribute the risk collectively; just as it is done with the popular sports soccer or skiing. Actuaries are then happy to decide whether this can then be lifted from the margin or whether this actually has to be taken into account in a new tariff.

Refreshment on the topic of occupational disability

At the end of each chapter, the book provides a résumé and a summary for “quick readers”. A good idea that the author should translate into those of his works whose chapters can feel like 100 pages, like his at the publisher CHBeck. published manual “Disability Insurance” (VersicherungsJournal 12.12.2019). The present publication is relatively manageable with 220 pages.

At the end of the day, it makes sense to always have this book, the “Kleine Neuhaus”, to hand when you need a brief refresher on what disability actually is, what obligations apply and how a pre-contractual reporting obligation can be avoided.

The specific questions about Corona may be of interest for a limited time. With a little transfer effort for the expert, however, they also allow one or the other to draw conclusions about other individual cases. For the broker or policyholder, however, the book is intended to be a useful and handy reference work on occupational disability insurance from the benefit case at all times.

Reading tip

The first edition of the book “Occupational Disability Insurance in Times of Corona and Pandemics” by Kai-Jochen Neuhaus was published in October 2020 as a paperback by Books-on-Demand-Verlag. It has 220 pages.

The work is available as a print version (ISBN 9783751997713) for 24.90 euros (including VAT). It can be obtained from the BoD bookshop with this link be obtained.

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