General Liability Insurance Conditions (AHB)

Purpose

The AHB are special policy conditions in liability insurance that – unlike general insurance conditions (AVB) – relate to the individual contract and take its specific terms into account. Key provisions of the Insurance Contract Act, such as the duty to pay premiums and the consequences of non-payment, are also set out for transparency.

Effect and limits

Under the principle that the more specific rule takes precedence over the general one, special conditions such as the AHB rank above the AVB. While they are not formally classified as standard terms and conditions in the narrow legal sense, they are nonetheless treated as such when they underlie a large number of insurance contracts, and they may not undercut the mandatory protective provisions of the VVG to the detriment of the policyholder.

Negotiation and practice

The AHB form the legal backbone of many liability products and are regularly supplemented with line- or risk-specific additional conditions, for example for product liability, environmental liability, or D&O risks. Since 2014 the GDV has been progressively migrating the AHB structure into modular condition sets (AVB PHV, AVB BHV); individual contracts regularly deviate from the non-binding model wording in practice.