Insurance & Reinsurance: Law And Practice

1. BASIS OF INSURANCE AND REINSURANCE LAW

1.1 Sources of Insurance and Reinsurance Law

The Swiss legal framework for private insurance is based on the following laws and regulations:

• The Federal Insurance Contract Act ("ICA") and, subsidiarily, the Swiss Code of Obligations ("CO") govern the contractual relationship between insurer, policyholder and insured (art 100, para 1, ICA). The ICA applies to direct insurance contracts underwritten by insurance undertakings subject to supervision by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority (FINMA; art 101, para 1, no. 2 e contrario, ICA). Reinsurance contracts are outside the scope of the ICA and are consequently only subject to the general contract law provisions of the CO (art 101, para 1, no. 1, ICA; see Section 6.6 below). A partial revision of the ICA ("Draft revICA"), a law that at its core dates back to 1908, has been proposed and was at the time of writing being deliberated in Swiss parliament