IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lue/wpaper/300.html

Some searches may not work properly. We apologize for the inconvenience.

   My bibliography  Save this paper

Liability Rule Failures? Evidence from German Court Decisions

Author

Listed:
  • Annika Pape

    (Leuphana University Lueneburg, Germany)

Abstract

Since 2007, all insurance intermediaries face negligence liability that is supposed to reallocate risks and set economic incentives. Nonetheless, further measures are taken to improve consumer protection. So, the question arises does the liability rule influence the agents behavior, or not, and does it influence in the intended way, or not? Do court cases provide evidence for failure of the current liability rule? Based upon an economic analysis of liability rules, aspects concerning potential failures can be derived. An analysis of twelve verdicts suggests that understatement of intermediary responsibility as well as a potential overstatement of the consumer responsibility yields suboptimal results. Often, missing documentation reinforces that tendency.

Suggested Citation

  • Annika Pape, 2014. "Liability Rule Failures? Evidence from German Court Decisions," Working Paper Series in Economics 300, University of Lüneburg, Institute of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.leuphana.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Forschungseinrichtungen/ifvwl/WorkingPapers/lue/pdf/wp_300_Upload.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uwe Focht & Andreas Richter & Jörg Schiller, 2013. "Intermediation and (Mis-)Matching in Insurance Markets—Who Should Pay the Insurance Broker?," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 80(2), pages 329-350, June.
    2. Focht, Uwe & Richter, Andreas & Schiller, Jörg, 2009. "Intermediation and matching in insurance markets," FZID Discussion Papers 04-2009, University of Hohenheim, Center for Research on Innovation and Services (FZID).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Annika Pape, 2014. "Miscounselling in the German Insurance Market—Utility-Orientated Implications for the Meaning of Miscounselling," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 561-582, December.
    2. Lukas Stricker & Joël Wagner & Angela Zeier Röschmann, 2023. "The Future of Insurance Intermediation in the Age of the Digital Platform Economy," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-32, August.
    3. Gao Siwei & Plehn-Dujowich Jose M., 2015. "Incentive Contracting with an Independent Underwriter: Does It Benefit Insurers?," Asia-Pacific Journal of Risk and Insurance, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 231-259, July.
    4. Banyár, József & Regős, Gábor, 2012. "Paradoxical price effects on insurance markets," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 1399-1407.
    5. Pinar Karaca-Mandic & Roger Feldman & Peter Graven, 2013. "The Role of Agents and Brokers in the Market for Health Insurance," Working Papers 13-58, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    6. Dan Constantin Dănuleţiu & Adina Elena Dănuleţiu, 2011. "Trends And Challenges Of Romanian Brokerage Insurance Market," Annales Universitatis Apulensis Series Oeconomica, Faculty of Sciences, "1 Decembrie 1918" University, Alba Iulia, vol. 2(13), pages 1-24.
    7. Jacob Dexe & Ulrik Franke & Alexander Rad, 2021. "Transparency and insurance professionals: a study of Swedish insurance practice attitudes and future development," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 46(4), pages 547-572, October.
    8. Lex, Christoph & Tennyson, Sharon, 2021. "EU intermediary regulation and its impact on insurance agent quality: Evidence from Germany," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    9. Pinar Karaca-Mandic & Roger Feldman & Peter Graven, 2013. "The Role of Agents and Brokers in the Market for Health Insurance," NBER Working Papers 19342, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Tsai-Jyh Chen, 0. "The role of distribution channels in market discipline for the life insurance industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 0, pages 1-23.
    11. Tsai-Jyh Chen, 2021. "The role of distribution channels in market discipline for the life insurance industry," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 46(1), pages 107-129, January.
    12. Robert Puelz, 2016. "Contingent Commissions and the Management of the Independent Agency," Risk Management and Insurance Review, American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 19(2), pages 225-248, September.
    13. Thomas Köhne & Christoph Brömmelmeyer, 2018. "The New Insurance Distribution Regulation in the EU—A Critical Assessment from a Legal and Economic Perspective," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 43(4), pages 704-739, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Insurance; Intermediaries; Liability; Consumer Protection; Court Errors; Court Cases;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G22 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Insurance; Insurance Companies; Actuarial Studies
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D89 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Other
    • K29 - Law and Economics - - Regulation and Business Law - - - Other
    • K40 - Law and Economics - - Legal Procedure, the Legal System, and Illegal Behavior - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:lue:wpaper:300. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Wagner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://leuphana.de/institute/ivwl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.