Conflict of Laws on Insurance Contracts in Europe

This contribution focuses on the conflict of law rules on insurance contracts and the proposed provision on the occasion of the establishment of the Rome I Regulation. It is concluded that the current conflict rules on insurance contracts are unclear and unsatisfactory as a result of their being included in the insurance directives without being carefully thought trough. This has led to an unsystematic and incoherent structure of insurance conflict rules, scattered over various directives, the Rome Convention and national law. The Rome I proposal was an excellent opportunity to get rid of this puzzlement and to formulate uniform conflict rules for insurance contracts. The Commission unfortunately has not taken the challenge. However, during the negotiations on the proposal initiatives have been employed to bring about uniform conflict rules for insurance contracts. Though the current Council proposal contains compromises, has some shortcomings and still does not stand out in simplicity, including this rule would certainly be an improvement compared to the current situation.

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