So far, only about half of all residential property owners have natural hazard insurance. In the event of damage, these households face a financial loss.
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was unable to come up with a specific legislative proposal for compulsory insurance against natural hazards for buildings at the Prime Ministers’ Conference (MPK) on Thursday in Berlin.
In view of extreme weather events, the federal states are pushing for compulsory insurance. The Prime Ministers of Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia, Stephan Weil (SPD) and Hendrik Wüst (CDU), made this clear before and after the MPK.
After the meeting, Wüst criticized that Federal Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann (FDP) had “rejected” the chancellor with regard to compulsory insurance and thus “triggered astonishment”. The states have now asked the federal government once again to examine the issue. It will then be discussed again at the beginning of 2023.
Weil said: “We believe that compulsory insurance is correct.” Not only the flood disaster in the Ahr Valley, but also experiences in many years before, in all parts of Germany, had shown that it could affect anyone.
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“It can’t be right that we keep trying to put together huge special pots from public budgets,” explained Weil. “If everyone is there, the burden for each individual will be correspondingly low.”
Half of households do not have proper insurance
The trigger for the debate was the 2021 flood disaster, in which more than 180 people died in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate as well as in parts of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Saxony. Billions in damage were caused to houses, but also to roads and bridges.
That does not work like this. Winfried Kretschmann (Greens), Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg
So far, only about half of all residential property owners have natural hazard insurance. In the event of damage, these households face a financial loss.
Even before the MPK, NWR Prime Minister Wüst accused the federal government of inaction: “The states agreed that we want compulsory insurance. We are still in agreement.” Six months ago, it was agreed “with the chancellor, with the federal government” that a draft would be drawn up. “Unfortunately, he’s still not there today,” criticized Wüst.
Baden-Württemberg’s Prime Minister Winfried Kretschmann (Greens) told the Tagesspiegel that only a “report with more questions than answers” was presented at the MPK: “It doesn’t work that way.”
Insurers warn against compulsory insurance
The insurers, on the other hand, warned on Thursday of a strict legal regulation. “A single compulsory insurance does not solve the problem, on the contrary, it does not prevent a single loss,” said Jörg Asmussen, General Manager of the German Insurance Association (GDV).
GDV called for the heads of government of the federal states to better focus their deliberations on prevention and adaptation to the consequences of climate change. This is the “linchpin” so that damage caused by natural disasters and thus insurance premiums do not get out of hand financially.
Insurers are calling for all building insurance policies that have already been taken out to be automatically switched to protection against natural hazards from a key date, provided customers do not object. A legal basis would also have to be created for this.
New contracts therefore include protection against elemental damage for buildings anyway.
According to the insurance industry, there should also be “binding protective measures”, such as building bans in endangered areas, an obligation to use flood-resistant building materials and a climate risk assessment for building permits, as well as a natural hazard certificate that shows the susceptibility of buildings to damage.
NRW Minister of Justice Benjamin Limbach (Greens) pointed out that the introduction of mandatory insurance for residential buildings against natural hazards “at least not from the outset” would conflict with far-reaching constitutional concerns.
At federal level, a goal-oriented discussion on compulsory insurance should therefore take place with the federal states. Limbach told the Handelsblatt: “The justice ministers of the federal states then expect a concrete regulatory proposal from the federal government.”
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