How To Find The Best German Liability Insurance
A private liability insurance will protect you against any third party claims. But which private liability insurance in Germany is the best for your personal situation? 🤔
Introduction: Which Insurances You Really Need In Germany
- Health insurance (either public or private)
- Disability income insurance that is protecting your ability to work and earn a living
- Private liability insurance that protects you against any third-party claims
Why A Private Liability Insurance Is Important
A (private) liability insurance is one of the most important insurances in Germany. That is because the German civil code (“Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch“) obliges you to compensate damages to others if you intentionally or negligently injure their life, body, health, freedom, property, or any other right. As the civil code mentions no cap to that liability, damages to others can get very expensive quickly:
- Hundreds of Euros if you drop the TV of your friend while you help them move
- Thousands of Euros if you lose the keys to your flat and the locks of the entire building have to be replaced
- Millions of Euros if you cause an accident and somebody is bound to a wheelchair for the rest of his life
No matter how hard you work and how much money you save during your career, you probably cannot pay millions of Euros to support other people’s lives, right? That is why private liability insurance will let you sleep calmly at night because you know you are safe from financial ruin if bad comes to worst. As seen above, it only takes one moment of not paying attention and all your savings are gone.
As private liability insurances are not mandatory by German law (unlike health insurance or car liability insurance), some people rather take the risk of having to pay millions of Euros instead of protecting themselves with private liability insurance in Germany. A recent survey from Allensbach revealed that about 30% of households in Germany have no third-party liability coverage. As you belong to the other 70% of smart households in Germany, here is how you can find the best private liability insurance for your personal situation with our calculator.
Best Liability Insurance in Germany Calculator
Unfortunately, we cannot provide the calculator in English just yet as we did not build the calculator ourselves (API with iframe). Be sure that we are trying to make an English version of the calculator available as soon as possible. The more people use our calculator the faster we will get it delivered in English. Until then, here are the filters you can set in order to find the best private liability insurance:
Versicherte Personen (insured people): Most important is the circle of insured people in order to find the best private liability insurance in Germany. Is it just you (Single ohne Kind) or are you looking for liability insurance together with your partner (Paar ohne Kind)? If it is the latter one, you need only one insurance as a couple as long as you are living under the same address. Do you have a child? If so, your child needs liability coverage as well because children are also liable for any third-party damage caused by them. As children cannot be held accountable for their actions, parents are responsible for their damages being paid, so select “Single mit Kind” or “Paar mit Kind.”
Ihr Alter (age): Some insurance companies offer rebates or special “youngster” insurances if you are below a certain age. A young age might help you save a little bit in your annual insurance premium.
Deckungssumme (maximum coverage): It is important to understand that the maximum coverage paid by your insurance will be per individual damage, and not for the entire time that you are insured. The 3 million € (1 star) to 50 million € (5 stars) range reveals the star levels that we use to rate most insurances. The general recommendation is to select at least a 3-star insurance (with 10 million € maximum coverage) in order to have decent insurance coverage. Please do not forego 47 million € in potential insurance coverage by selecting a 1-star insurance just to save 1€ monthly in premium.
Selbstbeteiligung (deductible): In case you are worried that a private liability insurance with 50 million € maximum coverage will cost you a lot of money now, you can decrease your annual insurance premium by sharing the risk with your insurance with a deductible. A deductible is the amount of money you have to pay yourself first (e.g. 150€) before the insurance company will start covering. Important to note: Unlike the deductible for private health insurance which is per year, the deductible for private liability insurance & household insurance is always per damage (5 damages per year would result in 5x deductible).
Important Details For Your Private Liability Insurance
In order to find the private liability insurance that is best for your personal situation, you want to set additional fiters by clicking on the “weitere Filter” button in our calculator.
Postleitzahl (postal code): Might make a little difference in your annual insurance premium when you live in an area with higher than average liability damages.
Besondere Zielgruppe (special group of people): If you are a civil servant (Beamter, police, etc) you may get a special discount on your insurance premium. If you do any kind of voluntary work, make sure to select “Ehrenamtliche Tätigkeit” as unpaid volunteering is not covered in every liability insurance.
Additional filters that will not just impact your annual insurance premium, but also your insurance coverage include the following. Feel free to select the exact coverage that you would like to have:
(Forderungs-)Ausfalldeckung (Default coverage): Do you remember the statistic from above that 30% of households in Germany have no private liability insurance? If one of these people damages your life or your property, they have to pay for your damage. If they have neither a liability insurance nor money, they cannot pay for your damage so you have no other options of replacing your damage yourself (suing them will also not help if they have no money). “(Forderungs-)Ausfalldeckung” is your solution because it will make your insurance company pay for your own damages in case the other person cannot pay.
Bestleistungsgarantie (best coverage guarantee): Property and casualty insurances are usually meant to be reviewed every once in a while to see if they can be replaced with a better, newer alternative (unlike health insurance or life insurance). “Bestleistungsgarantie” will minimize your efforts of constantly searching for new insurance, as your insurance company guarantees to cover and regulate the damage exactly as the best liability insurance in Germany would do.
Schlüsselverlust (loss of keys): When you live in a flat in a big multi-family house in which everyone shared the same keys to the property, losing your keys can get very expensive if all locks in the entire house have to be replaced (the highest invoice of one of our clients was 125.000€ to replace locks in a large property).
Mietsachschäden (Rental property damage): Many expats tell us that their landlords require them to have private liability insurance before signing the rental agreement, especially if they move into a furnished apartment. When selecting “Mietsachschäden” your liability insurance will replace damages to rental property.
Leihsachen (Borrowed property): Most insurance companies see borrowed property as (at least partly) your property because it was owned by you when the damage happened. And remember: A private liability insurance will cover for third-party damages only (for your damages you would need household insurance or device insurance). If you include “Leihsachen” all kinds of borrowed property would also be covered under your liability insurance.
Allmählichkeitsschäden (damage over time): Some damages might occur in one moment, other damages can happen slowly over a long period of time (e.g. leaking water from a water pipe inside a wall that damages your wooden floor, mold developing because of insufficient ventilation).
Gefälligkeitsschäden (damage when helping friends): Damages that occur during a friendly service you do for someone else without gaining any money for it (“Gefälligkeit” in German). Because of the high abuse potential (e.g. your friend drops his TV during his move and instead of him admitting it honestly, you claim before your liability insurance that you dropped your friend’s TV and commit insurance fraud) these kinds of damages are very closely looked at from German insurance companies.
Schäden Internetnutzung (Internet damage): A study from Die Versicherer in 2019 revealed that 24% of people in Germany have been falling victim to internet crimes with an average damage of 390€. You might forward a virus to somebody that needs to recover data or buy a completely new electronic device. You might commit copyright infringement without even knowing it and somebody else has property damage (“Vermögensschaden“) because of you. If you include internet damages, your private liability insurance will pay for all these damages.
Heizöltank (oil tank leakage): As you are generally liable for all kinds of damages that you cause, you are also liable if you are the owner of a (heating) oil tank that starts leaking and pollutes the groundwater. Even if you are not responsible for the damage. As long as it is your oil tank, you have to pay. Therefore, that coverage is indispensable for oil tank owners.
Conclusion: Best Private Liability Insurance In Germany
After setting all filters right you can click the blue “Anbieter vergleichen” button to find the private liability insurance that our calculator determined to be best for your personal situation. If you do not like the results given by our calculator, you can change the filters and compare afterwards again.
- Leistungen shows a short overview of the highlights of your potential new liability insurance
- Produktdetails reveal the exact coverage that can be extended even further with the tooltips when clicking on “?”
- Kosten je Jahr is your annual premium (Yes, really. It is not your monthly insurance premium 😉)
- Mouse over the ratings and you can see that some insurance even won prices (e.g. Stiftung Warentest, Focus Money, etc)
- When clicking “zum Anbieter” we will get an affiliate commission when you get that insurance at no extra cost to you
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