Does my family insurance always intervene for intentional damage caused by my live-in children?

The family insurance

Family insurance covers the civil/non-contractual liability that the insured may incur, outside their professional activities, under Book 6 of the Civil Code, in particular Articles 6.5 to 6.17 of the Civil Code. The insurance also covers damage caused to others by members of the insured’s household. In other words, you can call on the family insurance when you or someone in your household has caused damage, intentionally or unintentionally, to a person or to a person’s property, and when this happened in private life. For example, if one of the children accidentally kicks a ball through your neighbour’s window, the insurance can be called upon to compensate that damage.

Intentional damage

The question now is: what about damage that your child causes intentionally?

The answer to that question is not so simple. Strictly speaking, it is still not possible to agree that the person who intentionally caused the loss is covered by insurance for that act. Intent is, in principle, not insurable. This means that intentional acts committed by young people are, in principle, not covered by family insurance.

Even so, many insurance policies contain a clause under which damage caused by intentional conduct of an insured under the age of eighteen remains, at least partly, included in the cover, although this still depends on the specific policy conditions.

Under the new law, the personal non-contractual liability of minors has now been clarified by statute. A minor under the age of twelve is, in principle, not liable for damage caused by their fault or by another fact giving rise to liability (Art. 6.9 Civil Code). A minor aged twelve or older is, in principle, liable (Art. 6.10, first paragraph Civil Code), although the court may reduce or even exclude the compensation payable on grounds of fairness (Art. 6.10, second paragraph Civil Code).

For the question whether family insurance will intervene, the distinction between the child’s personal cover and the parents’ liability nevertheless remains important.

Damage intentionally caused by the child personally will generally not be covered when the child is addressed as the direct person who caused the damage. Does that mean that, as a parent, you must bear that loss yourself? Not necessarily, because above we already discussed the insurance cover for faults committed by your child.

Your family insurance also covers your liability as a parent or as another holder of authority over the person of the minor. Under Book 6, parents, adoptive parents, guardians and foster carers who have authority over the person of a minor under the age of sixteen are strictly liable for the damage that this minor causes to third parties (Art. 6.12, first paragraph Civil Code). If the minor is aged sixteen or older, they remain liable, but they may be exonerated if they prove that the damage is not due to any fault on their part (Art. 6.12, second paragraph Civil Code).

In short, even under the new law, in practice the family insurer of the parents will in many cases still need to be addressed when a minor child intentionally causes damage. For the parents, the cover therefore remains very important, even if the child’s own personal cover may remain excluded.

If the family insurance intervened for the parents, but the young person had caused the damage intentionally, the further question arises whether the insurer can later recover the amount paid from the young person.

The Court of Cassation already ruled in 2010 that the family insurer that intervenes for the parents’ liability cannot simply recover the amount paid from the young person once that person has become an adult, merely because the damage had been caused intentionally. That judgment remains relevant today.