Any One Accident Limit (Ereignis-/Kumullimite)

Purpose

In group personal accident insurance many persons with high sums are insured under one contract; an aircraft crash, a coach accident on a company trip, a fire or an explosion at the premises can affect dozens of insured persons at the same time. The any one accident limit (also accumulation limit or event limit) therefore caps the insurer’s total liability for all claims arising from the same accident or from a series of accidents with the same original cause, irrespective of the number of persons affected and of the sum of the individual sums insured. It typically covers all benefit types of the personal accident section including extensions.

Structure

Wordings typically distinguish three limits: the general any one accident limit, a scheduled aircraft accumulation limit for accidents in scheduled airliners (illustratively defined as aircraft with more than 18 seats flying from internationally recognised airports on a published schedule) and a usually lower non-scheduled aircraft accumulation limit for charter, corporate or private aircraft. If a limit is exceeded, the insurer pays the maximum amount and reduces each individual claim proportionately until the total of payments no longer exceeds the limit; the insured persons bear the uncovered remainder, which is why employers should test the limit against the sum of the maximum sums insured of their travelling executives.

Insurer Accumulation Control

For the insurer the event limit is an instrument of accumulation control: it caps the probable maximum loss per contract, serves as the basis for exposure reporting in reinsurance (catastrophe excess of loss for personal accident) and complements clients’ internal travel policies, such as spreading management across several flights. In German group accident insurance, accumulation clauses and maximum compensation per loss event fulfil the same function.