Abstract

The article presents the basis and the scope of liability of insurance companies (under third party liability insurance of the guilty party) if in effect of the damage the victim needs to rent a substitute vehicle. An inspiration for raising this issue was the analysis of the current court practice. The case law adopts as the measure of the amount of the compensation due “the expenses necessary to use another vehicle to the same extent in which the victim would use their own vehicle should the damage had not been done.” The article notes three jurisprudential trends:

1) expansion of the scope of losses treated as covered by insurer’s duty to repair the damage;

2) the need to apply the principles of liability for damages in connection with the recognition of the costs of renting a substitute vehicle as a legally significant loss, and

3) the consolidation and universalisation of the factor of “reasonable and economically justified costs” of hiring a substitute vehicle as a criterion for examining the adequate causality as a premise for liability and affecting the scope of the duty to repair the damage by the insurer.