Most families have family insurance to cover themselves against the financial consequences of unpleasant surprises.
But what if your child deliberately smashes the neighbour's window? Or what if your child commits a theft or gets involved in a fight? Will family insurance then intervene to compensate the victims' damages?
You can read the answers to these questions in this Wanted Fact.
The family insurance
The family insurance covers the civil/ extra-contractual liability that the insured, outside his professional activity, may incur under Articles 1382 to 1386 old Civil Code. In addition, the insurance also covers damages caused by family members of the insured to others.
In other words, this means that you can request the intervention of the family insurance when you or someone in your family has (un)intentionally caused damage to (the property of) a person, and when this has happened during leisure time. For example, when one of the children accidentally kicks the ball through your neighbour's window, the insurance can be called in to compensate for the damage of this.
Intentional damage
The question now is: What in the case of damage caused intentionally by your child?
The answer to this question is not so simple. Strictly legally, one can never agree that intentionally caused wrongs are still covered by insurance. After all, intent is not insurable. This means that intentional acts committed by young people, even those under 16, are in principle not covered by family insurance.
Yet quite a few insurance policies contain a clause that does keep damage caused by intentional behaviour of an insured under 16 years of age in the cover. The reasoning here is that minors under 16 do not have sufficient discernment to commit an ‘intentional fault’. If this clause is not provided for in the insurance policy, then insurance intervention will depend on the court's judgement as to whether the underage perpetrator possessed the required discernment at the time of the (intentional) harmful act.
Intentionally caused damage by children over 16 years old is usually not covered. So does this mean that, as a parent, you have to pay for these damages yourself? Surely not, above we already talked about your child's fault insurance coverage.
Your family insurance also covers your liability as a parent. As a parent, you are liable for your child's mistakes, even if those mistakes are intentional and your child is older than 16 (but younger than 18). In short, parents who are liable under Art. 1384 old Civil Code for their child's intentionally caused damage can always claim coverage under their family insurance policy.
Indeed, for the parents, the family insurance must always intervene; for the children, what was explained above applies. If the family insurance intervened for the parents, but the young person had deliberately caused the damage, it was assumed in the past that the family insurance could reclaim the money from the young person once he had turned eighteen.
The Court of Cassation put an end to this absurd situation with a ruling in 2010. So today, you can rest easy as a parent. If your family insurer has compensated the claimant for damage caused intentionally by your child, it will no longer be able to reclaim the amount paid from him once he has come of age (Cass. 11 January 2010, C.07.0434.F).
Conclusion
Therefore, if you, as a parent, are held liable for a claim caused by your child, you should not hesitate to turn to your family insurer. They will always have to intervene, regardless of whether your child is under or over 16.
Contact Wanted Law
Please contact us if you have more specific questions regarding your family insurance or other insurance policies, defence against your insurer's refusal to intervene, or specific questions regarding your insurer's intervention in a concrete case.