Nearly €2m for European insurance law study

The European Research Council has awarded funding for a comparative history of insurance law in Europe.

The study will be undertaken by legal scholar Professor Dr Phillip Hellwege at the University of Augsburg in Germany. Nearly €2m has been awarded to the five-year project in the form of a Consolidator Grant.

According to the university, the differences in insurance law within Europe are considerable and constitute an impediment to the development of a single European market in the insurance sector. As a result, there have been efforts over the last few years to harmonise insurance law in Europe. Yet to realise this harmony, it is first necessary to fully understand the differences that exist between the national laws.

National legal differences are the result of historical developments and the university cites that understanding such variances is important for the harmonisation. The historical basis for European insurance law, unlike the historical roots of many other fields of law, is largely unresearched so far.

Commenting on the project, Hellwege said: “Our aspiration is to re-evaluate the history of insurance law in Europe at the end of the project and thus to be able to deliver a historical basis for a modern European insurance jurisprudence.”

The Consolidator Grant allows the Augsburg legal scholar to hire a number of PhD students as members of the project team and to organise conferences that are oriented towards the corresponding themes. In addition, he can finance a series of research semesters for his own research thanks to the resources that the ERC has made available to him.