Supreme Court, Second Civil Chamber, 14 September 2017: Verification of the insured’s declarations

Facts

An insured was denied cover for having misrepresented the risk. The insured claimed that his broker should have verified his declarations at the time he took out the policy. The insured argued that the broker owed him a general duty to verify his declarations.

Decision

The court first held that it was not the broker’s responsibility to verify the accuracy of the insured’s declaration, or to warn him about the consequences of an inaccurate declaration.

In addition, they found that in that case the intermediary had no reason to suspect a false declaration.

CGPA comments

The argument that intermediaries owe a general verification duty was therefore formally rejected in this case, and such duty was not imposed on either the broker or the insurer. Indeed, it is the responsibility of the insured, when taking out an insurance policy to provide, in good faith, all information necessary to assess the risk.