Procedure
This focus area can be completed in two semesters. In the Fall semester, the course “Private Insurance Law I” is compulsory, in the Spring semester the lecture “Private Insurance Law II”.
It is recommended to start in the fourth semester and to complete the focus area by participating in the seminar (incl. Bachelor thesis) and taking the oral examination in the sixth semester.
Students have to register electronically for the focus area in Portal2 prior taking the first examination.
Substance
The insurance industry enables economic risks to be transferred to the insurer in return for a premium payment. This possibility is a prerequisite for most of the rules of liability and damages law. Risks such as pandemics, climate change, illness, loss of relatives or poverty in old age can also be made economically bearable with the help of the legal product “insurance”. The economic importance of insurance law is shown by the volume of existing insurance relationships (approximately 430 million Euro).
Private insurance law, which the focus area of insurance law at the University of Mannheim deals with, rests on four cornerstones:
- the insurance contract law,
- the insurance supervisory law,
- the insurance business law and
- international and European private insurance law
Private insurance law needs to be distinguished from social security law. Social insurance law regulates insurance relationships existing by law between insured persons and social insurance institutions (e.g. statutory health insurance funds). These are not part of the curriculum. Private insurance law is a particularly versatile core area of commercial law. Not only does it develop constant interactions with general private law and other sub-areas of commercial law, but it also has strong interdisciplinary references to insurance management theory and actuarial mathematics. The University of Mannheim addresses these issues at the Institute of Insurance.