Protection of the rights of the weaker contracting party in accordance with the Principles of European Insurance Contract Law

Abstract

An analysis of not only domestic but also comparative legislation indicates the continued presence of the former trend in regulation of insurance contract law, which reflects the legislator's tendencies to protect the insurer from the policyholder's fraudulent conduct. However, certain legal systems have begun to amend their regulations in order to keep up with contemporary tendencies, reflected in providing the necessary protection to the weaker party, i.e. consumer. Therefore, the author analyses the mechanisms of protection of this contracting party presented in the Principles of European Contract Law on Insurance, because it is a source of soft law, whose authors sought to sublimate as many well balanced provisions as possible in order to achieve a higher level of protection for the weaker contracting party. The Paper analyses only some of the provisions of the Principles that strive to ensure the expansion in the scope of the policyholders' rights, while reducing their duties, on one hand, and excluding too severe sanctions in case of their misconduct, on the other hand. Even though it is high unlikely that any steps will be taken towards PEICL enactment by EU regulations, at least in the near future, there remains possibility for their impact at the legislative and scientific level. This is also testified by this paper, which can contribute to the review of current domestic legal solutions.