Insurance contract: Historical and theoretical profiles from the perspective of European law

Abstract

From the beginning, the best doctrine understood that the true “essence” of the insurance “phenomenon” is to be found in the “support” by the insurer, to the extent agreed in the contract, the economic consequences of a risk looming in rerum natura on the insured, concentrating such this function in the ancient formula: susceptio periculi rei alienae. And this was the reason justifying the insurance contract or the cause for which the law system recognizes legal significance to this peculiar contract, making the same interest in socially useful. Today the insurance has been regulated as an autonomous type, because through the mechanism of “assumption” of risks” (essential factor in the pattern of business trade), has allowed the development of “activities and lifestyles become inseparable from the human condition that ,otherwise, “would have broken or late development”. The recognition of susceptio periculi as the unitary cause of every single insurance contract has been advocated by many appreciated Authors, while it was going to meet the resistance of those who considered the direct transfer of risk such as’ “the object of the contract of insurance” in the wake of other doctrine. In other words, “taking on charge” or “supporting” of risk by the insurance company means that the same should compensate the insured for injuries caused by loss (in property insurance or no life insurance). Otherwise, in relation to life insurance, the insurer will perform its financial benefit “capitalizing” the savings that the policyholder has decided to set aside in order to face their future with confidence (if survive beyond a certain date) or for safety to certain survivors (in the event of his death).