Swiss risk managers reject contract law

The current system in Switzerland works as you would expect. In order to get compensation, an injured party has to appeal to the party it believes is responsible. If liability is found the company has to pay compensation directly and then make a claim to its liability insurer. If the planned new Insurance Contract Law comes into effect, the injured party will have the right to go directly to the insurer with the claim. This potentiality has not gone down well with Swiss risk managers.

“Injured parties would have a direct influence on our liability insurance. I think it should be left up to the companies whether they want to insure their liability risks or not,” Mr Schiesser said at Sirm’s meeting in Pfäffikon near Zurich last month.

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Lorenz Stampfli, Insurance and Risk Manager at Cern, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, is concerned that business secrets will be revealed. “Internal matters are going to become public knowledge,” he said. “If a company has liability insurance, or does business without it, it is no one’s business but the company’s and within the realm of its constitutional freedom.”

“The disclosure requirements will become especially hard for companies when tailor-made international insurance programmes are affected,” said Sirm president Dieter Berger, who also heads the insurance department of power supplier Alpiq. The intellectual property of the contract would be endangered, he added.

The regulations have not yet come into force because the Swiss Commission for Economic Affairs and Taxation has decided that the legislative proposal needs to be modified and sent back to the federal council of Switzerland—the Bundesrat—Swiss risk managers hope that the law will not come into force at all.