Life insurance

Dispute resolution in the area of life insurance

The Financial Arbitrator is pursuant to Sec. 1 Par. 1 letter e) of the Act No. 229/2002 Coll., on Financial Arbitrator, as amended, competent to decide disputes between an insurer or an insurance intermediary in connection with distribution of life insurance and in connection with exercising rights and obligations from life insurance.

Life insurance is an insurance, by which the insured event is connected with death, reaching certain age or date of the end of the insurance, or other situation concerning a change of personal status of such individual. Precise definition of the term life insurance can be found in Sec. 790 letter b) of the Act No. 40/1964 Coll., Civil Code, version valid until 31. 12. 2004, Sec. 54 of the Act No. 37/2004 Coll., on Insurance Contract and on amendments to other acts, as amended, valid until 31. 12. 2013, Sec. 2833 Act No. 89/2012 Coll., Civil Code, as amended.

The Financial Arbitrator is not competent to decide disputes concerning any other type of insurance (e.g. property insurance, motor insurance, insurance against liability for damage caused to third parties, etc.). The same applies in cases where such non-life insurance (e.g. accident insurance) forms a supplementary insurance to the life insurance contract.

Insurance intermediaries are legally regulated entities, who are supervised by the Czech National Bank. Their duties were regulated in the Act No. 38/2004 Coll., on Insurance Intermediaries and on Independent Loss Adjusters and on Amendment to the Trade Licensing Act, as amended, valid until 31. 12. 2017 and now they are regulated in the Act No. 170/2018 Coll., on Distribution of Insurance and Reinsurance, as amended.

The Financial Arbitrator is authorized to decide e.g. the following disputes:

• validity/invalidity of the life insurance contract
• validity/invalidity of the agreement on fees connected with the life insurance
• damage caused in connection with the life insurance
• disputes over insurance benefits (an agreed insurance benefit has not been paid out, or there is a dispute about the amount of insurance benefit)

Filing a complaint to commence proceedings, forms, Collection of decisions

For the purpose of filing a complaint, we recommend you to use the Complaint Filing Tutorial or a Complaint form.