Property owners affected by a Russian missile incident in the Lublin region should not expect any special compensation from the Polish state. Instead, their only path to reimbursement may run through private insurance contracts, which can differ significantly depending on the type of building.
The legal situation was laid out by Marcin Orlicki, a legal adviser and professor at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, who specialises in civil and insurance law. In an interview with “Rzeczpospolita”, he explained that there is no separate government payout mechanism for damage linked to military incidents.
– People living near the border should think about concluding insurance that will give them effective protection against damage caused by warfare – Orlicki said.
Farm buildings and compulsory cover
A key distinction applies to agricultural real estate. If a farm building is damaged, the compulsory insurance regime is triggered. The rules governing the insurer’s responsibility are uniform and defined in the Polish Act on Compulsory Insurance, the expert noted.
– If an agricultural building is damaged, then compulsory insurance for this type of building applies. The insurer’s liability rules are uniform and set out in the Act on Compulsory Insurance – said Marcin Orlicki.
The professor pointed out that insurers offering farm-building policies cannot narrow their liability below the statutory standard. Article 73 of the Act lists the permitted exclusions, and war operations are not among them.
– Insurers, in the case of insurance of farm buildings, cannot in any way limit their liability compared to the statutory standard. The catalogue of permissible exclusions of insurer liability set out in Art. 73 of the Act on Compulsory Insurance does not list war actions. Therefore it should be concluded that even if the damage arose as a side effect of warfare, including outside Poland’s borders, the insurer is liable – emphasised the expert.
Voluntary policies for other buildings
The picture changes when the damaged property is not part of a farm. For residential, commercial or other non-agricultural buildings, property insurance is voluntary. That means every owner may sign a policy with different conditions – some contracts cover war-related destruction, others explicitly exclude it.
– However, in the case of insurance covering buildings other than those on agricultural holdings, the insurance contract is voluntary. Therefore each building owner may have insurance on different terms – with or without exclusion of liability for damage arising from war events. In this case the insurer’s liability rules are not unified and do not follow from legal provisions but from the content of the contract – Orlicki added.
In other words, the scope of protection for homeowners depends on the wording of their policy. The recent incident in the Lublin region serves as a reminder that residents near the border should carefully review whether their policies include or exclude wartime events.
Source: WNP.PL, Photo: Wojtek Jargiło / PAP
