Austrian OGH: Several Proceedings, One Insurance Payment

Apr 4, 2025 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

If insured events are connected in time and causation, the sum insured is only payed out once. This has been clarified by the Austrian Supreme Court (Oberster Gerichtshof, hereinafter OGH).

In the case at hand, the plaintiff sought coverage under his title insurance policy for a claim against his former property management company. A settlement was reached in which the company agreed to be liable for future damages arising from its property management activities. The plaintiff argued that the property management company’s refusal to pay had created a new insured event, as a result of which the full amount of the policy should be made available again.

The defendant insurance company acknowledged the basic obligation to provide coverage, but denied that this was a recurring loss. The plaintiff had already filed two previous lawsuits against the property management company and one of its subcontractors, alleging the same breaches of duty. Since the insurance conditions stipulate that the insured sum is only available once for one and the same incident, the benefits already paid were to be deducted.

The lower courts followed this line of argumentation and rejected the plaintiff’s request to recover the full amount of the policy.

The OGH upheld this decision, the decisive factor being that several insured events shall be assessed as one single event if they result from the same cause. The original breach of duty by the property management company had already been the subject of earlier proceedings. The mere denial of causality by the property management company in the new proceedings does not constitute a new insured event, but merely a necessary verification of causality.

This means that the coverage is only available once for all three proceedings. The plaintiff’s ‘extraordinary appeal’ was dismissed for lack of a substantial point of law.

OGH 7 Ob 154/24h (29 January 2025)