The Supreme Court of Justice recently ruled on an issue of significant practical relevance for the insurance sector: can the managing partner of a company that owns a motor vehicle validly enter into an insurance contract, in their own name, for that same vehicle? Or is such contract null and void due to the absence of the interest required by law?<\/p>\n
The issue is directly linked to the requirement of insurable interest<\/strong>, enshrined in Article 43 of the Legal Regime of the Insurance Contract, approved by Decree-Law No. 72\/2008 of 16 April, according to which the policyholder or insured must hold an interest worthy of legal protection<\/strong> in relation to the covered risk, failing which the contract is null and void.<\/p>\n In the dispute at issue, the case concerned a motor insurance contract entered into by a managing partner in their individual capacity, covering a vehicle owned by the company managed by that person. The question was whether, since the insured was not the formal owner of the asset, the contract would be null and void due to lack of insurable interest under Article 43 of the Legal Regime of the Insurance Contract.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court of Justice, in its judgment of 30 April 2026<\/strong> (Case No. 5226\/20.8T8VNG.L1.S1), available at www.dgsi.pt, concluded that, in view of the specific circumstances of the case<\/strong>, the managing partner of the company that owned the vehicle held an interest worthy of legal protection, and the insurance contract entered into by them should not be declared null and void for lack of interest.<\/p>\n The decision endorses an interpretation that has been developed by Portuguese legal doctrine and case law regarding the breadth of the concept of interest in insurance: it is not limited to ownership of the insured asset, and may arise from other relevant legal or economic relationships \u2014 as is the case where a person, although not the owner, has an effective and legally protected patrimonial or functional interest in the preservation of the asset, namely by virtue of management duties and the regular use of the vehicle within that activity. The April 2026 decision therefore strengthens the view that nullity for lack of interest, provided for in Article 43 of the Legal Regime of the Insurance Contract, should be applied with particular caution in corporate contexts, avoiding solutions that, under the guise of formal strictness, leave unprotected those who effectively bear the economic risk linked to the insured asset.<\/p>\n In conclusion, for insurers, policyholders and insurance intermediaries, the decision reinforces the need, in the event of a dispute over the validity of the contract, to consider not only the formal ownership of the asset, but also the substantive relationship between the insured and the covered risk. In motor insurance contracts entered in the context of small and medium-sized companies \u2014 often managed by the partner who uses the vehicle in the course of their activity \u2014 the requirement of strict coincidence between formal ownership and insured status does not, according to this judgment, find automatic support in law. Belzuz Law Firm, S.L.P.<\/a> has a team of lawyers experienced in reviewing claims associated with insurance products, who can provide legal advice on this matter as well as in the analysis and management of claims related to these issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":18937,"template":"","categories":[],"area-de-practica":[225],"publicaciones":[133],"idioma-publicacion":[71],"areas-practica-publicacciones":[],"class_list":["post-21614","publicacion","type-publicacion","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","area-de-practica-insurance-law","publicaciones-ricardo-meireles-vieira","idioma-publicacion-ingles"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publicacion\/21614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publicacion"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/publicacion"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21614"},{"taxonomy":"area-de-practica","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/area-de-practica?post=21614"},{"taxonomy":"publicaciones","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/publicaciones?post=21614"},{"taxonomy":"idioma-publicacion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/idioma-publicacion?post=21614"},{"taxonomy":"areas-practica-publicacciones","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/belzuz.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/areas-practica-publicacciones?post=21614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}