Environmental insurance in Poland – The notion, scope and legal determinants
Environmental insurance in Poland – The notion, scope and legal determinants

Author(s): Malwina Lemkowska
Subject(s): Energy and Environmental Studies, Civil Law, Environmental and Energy policy
Published by: Masarykova univerzita nakladatelství
Keywords: environmental insurance; environmental law; polish insurance market;
Summary/Abstract: The potential insuring parties in Poland have recently started to identify the environmental risk. The environmental insurance products are relatively new as the part of insurers’ offer. The article refers to the legal determinants of environmental insurance market’s development. Firstly the author will explicate the term “environmental insurance” (taking into account Polish and international conditions as the background of analyses) and secondly, explain the influence, that the Polish insurance and environmental legal system have on the development of the market. The main purpose of the researcher is to answer two research questions: what attributes the insurance products qualified in Poland to the category “environmental insurance” have and how the structure of Polish legal system determines their scope. Preliminary results of the research indicate that all environmental insurance products can be divided into three groups (liability, property and personal environmental insurance). The identification and assessment of the environmental risk during the underwriting process are the criteria, which cause that the insurance product is classified as an environmental one. There are only few offers of stand-alone environmental liability products in Poland. Besides, there are environmental clauses in some general civil liability insurance. We expect the development of property and personal environmental insurance in future. They are predicted to fill the gaps in the liability regime. The regime of both administrative and civil liability law is enough to determine the scope of environmental liability insurance products. The property and personal insurance are influenced by the legal scope of freedom of contracting (as defined in Polish civil code), the definition of property and personal interests, which (according to law) can be the subject of insurance and the boarders created by the insurance classification (the list of non-life and life insurance classes).

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