Personal Liability
The Personal Liability Policy (Aansprakelijkheidsverzekering Voor Particulieren - AVP) is there to protect you in cases where you might be held responsible as a private person for any damage you may have caused to any third party. Not only could this be about property damage, it could also involve damage or claims that have resulted directly from the event. The first example is direct: you scratch a parked car with your shopping cart at the supermarket. In the second situation the owner of that car while it is being repaired needs to rent another car in order to earn his living.It’s not hard to come up with many examples. And although damage is mostly limited to a few hundred Euros, sometimes it can run into much bigger amounts. Just imagine what might happen when you run your bike over a child darting across the street in front of you. The injuries could have far-reaching (financial) consequences.
In such cases, the Personal Liability policy is the one to have. It can protect you against claims from others, and we think they represent good value for low cost. Not everything can be insured, however, even Personal Liability Insurance has its restrictions. We provide a summary below. This shows you a good, but abbreviated overview of what you might reasonably expect.
Covered area
Most insurers will provide cover for you wherever in the world you happen to be.
The insured parties when there is family-cover:
- The insured
- A spouse sharing the same address
- Any persons living-in in a family setting
- Their underage children
- Any children having reached maturity, provided they are living at home and are unmarried, or unmarried but living elsewhere for reason of military service or study
- Any living-in parents, grandparents, in-laws, and other blood relatives living at the same address
Restrictions or exceptions
Not only is it useful to know when the insurer does provide cover; it is easily just as important to know when that will not be the case:
- The foremost exclusion is damage caused by motor vehicles. These events are always to be covered by separate policies.
- Damage to goods that are under your control as the result of an agreement with another party. Examples include a damaged rental TV in your home, or the rented dwelling that you inhabit.
- Damage to motor vehicles, caravans, trailers, pleasure craft and other objects you have borrowed from someone else. (Insurers tend to think that the person lending such objects has evidently accepted such risk by placing it in your ‘care’. These matters can give rise to strenuous argumentation.)
- Damage caused by sailing vessels is also excluded, provided the size of their sails exceeds 16 m². These are the big ones.
Expressly included:
- Having pets
- Providing a service free of charge on an amicable basis; usually up to € 11,500
