General Conditions (insurance contracts)
You should be aware that when you take out an insurance policy, the following are an integral part of it Special Conditions as well as the corresponding General Terms and Conditions.
Over time, any insurer may update or modify the General Conditions of its products. However, it must maintain the ones that correspond to the contract you signed. Therefore, in your special conditions the number of the general conditions that apply to it must be indicated.
As set out in the Article 3 of Law 50/1980 on insurance contractsThe general and special conditions must be drafted clearly and precisely. Clauses limiting the rights of the insured must be specially highlighted and accepted in writing.
The general conditions cannot be detrimental to the insured. Moreover, they must be included in the insurance proposal, if any, and necessarily in the contract policy.
What are the General Conditions?
The General Conditions are documents that contain all the clauses that regulate contracts, including insurance contracts.
Insurers must give you a copy together with the particular conditions of your contract. They can even provide it to you before contracting if they consider it necessary. This document details the scope of each guarantee, as well as its exclusions.
Upgrades and maintenance of conditionalities
It is common for insurers to modify their terms and conditions over time to add new guarantees or introduce changes. For this reason, each version must have a number (model) that relates it to the particular conditions, where this number will also appear.
For example, imagine you took out your car insurance 10 years ago, and it included a towing guarantee with a maximum distance of 150 km. If the insurer launches a new product that limits that distance to 100 km, you will still have to respect the original conditions of your contract. This is why it is important to keep a copy of the terms and conditions you signed.
Standard content of the General Conditions
The general conditions generally include:
- Legal regulation: information on the insurer, applicable law, customer service and data protection.
- Summary table of guarantees.
- Definitions.
- Territorial scope.
- Purpose of the insurance, scope, exclusions and details of the contractable guarantees. It is important to note that not all the guarantees included in this document are necessarily contracted. To find out, you should consult your particular conditions.
- Procedures in the event of a claim.
In addition to any other information that may be useful to the insured.