opinion poll
Fifth of the population does not have liability insurance
A total of 2145 people were interviewed in the survey. Photo: Stefan Sauer/dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
According to a survey, 20 percent of respondents do not have private liability insurance. The insurance gap for professional liability is even larger.
In Germany, a good fifth of the adult population has not taken out private liability insurance. This was determined by the Yougov survey institute in a published representative survey.
According to this, 76 percent of the 2145 participants said that they had private liability insurance, 20 percent said no, and the rest did not answer. The survey was commissioned by the Munich online portal Check24, whose main business areas include the sale of insurance policies.
In Germany, a whole range of liability insurance is mandatory, including motor vehicle liability for car owners or hunting liability for hunters. However, personal liability is not mandatory. Even for very large damages, the polluters are then liable with their entire private assets.
The insurance gap is somewhat larger in the public sector. According to the survey, a quarter of civil servants and employees in the public sector have no professional liability. While in private companies the employer is usually liable for damage caused by the workforce during work, in the public sector there can be both expensive claims for damages and claims for recourse from the employer if the damage was caused negligently. A frequently cited example is the teacher who is not paying attention for a moment on a class trip, causing a child to have an accident.