When taking out a home insurance contract, policyholders must sign the general conditions. If this is not the case, they can turn against their insurer after a disaster in their home.
Everyone accepts them but no one reads them. Often comprising dozens of pages, the general conditions of sale or use are systematically presented to customers who are about to sign a contract. Whether purchasing a telephone plan, opening a bank account, taking out an electricity subscription or a home insurance contract, most of the time consumers do not spend time on these particularly voluminous documents.
However, these general conditions are crucial because the clauses mentioned therein can tip the scales in a dispute between a customer and a company. This is what a couple recently discovered, mired in a legal case against their insurance company for several years. The facts date back to 2016. That year, Mr. and Mrs. Lamantin (the name has been changed) were victims of a burglary at their home. After filing a complaint, the spouses contacted their insurer, the Allianz Iard company, to obtain compensation. However, the company offered them an amount that the couple considered “insufficient”. In fact, the company tells them it wants to limit the guarantee offered by their home insurance contract because their home did not have, at the time of the burglary, sufficiently secure locks on their door and windows.
Feeling aggrieved, the couple took the insurance company to court. The spouses maintained that the limitation of guarantee, linked to insufficient protection of the home, had been added during an update of the general conditions of their home insurance contract. Document that they had received (years before) but never signed! The couple also criticized the insurance company for refusing to assess the value of a diamond ring that had been stolen, even though the theft of the jewel had initially been noted.
The judges ruled in favor of the spouses and ordered the insurer to pay them 44,210.48 euros in compensation as well as damages for “abusive resistance in handling the claim”. However, the insurance company appealed the decision. In a judgment rendered on February 11, 2020, the Nancy Court of Appeal rendered a judgment in favor of the insurer.
The magistrates recalled that the couple had presented to the court the “updated” version of the general conditions of their home insurance contract. As such, the judges considered that the couple was aware of the limitation of guarantee due to insufficient protection of the home.
Concerning the ring, the Nancy Court of Appeal indicated that the spouses had not been able to prove the value of the jewel. In their decision, the appeal judges therefore considerably reduced the amount of compensation, to only 4,365.05 euros, and dismissed Mr. and Mrs. Lamantin’s request for damages.
However, the couple who were victims of the burglary did not give up the matter and took the matter to the Court of Cassation. In its judgment No. 83 FD, delivered on January 20, 2022, the highest court in the country recalled that the simple fact that the insured had produced their own copy of the general conditions of their contract was not enough to prove that they had accepted them. Only a proper signature can prove acceptance. According to the magistrates, the Nancy Court of Appeal violated articles L. 112-2, L. 112-3 and L. 112-4 of the Insurance Code.
With regard to the diamond ring, the Court of Cassation recalled that appeal judges cannot refuse to assess damage which they initially noted to exist. By refusing to assess the amount of this damage, the court of appeal had violated article 4 of the Civil Code.
In this way, the Court of Cassation annulled the decision of the Nancy Court of Appeal and referred both parties to the Colmar Court of Appeal. Finally, the Court ordered the company Allianz Iard, according to article 700 of the code of civil procedure, to pay the Lamantin couple the sum of 3,000 euros to reimburse their legal costs.
