책임보험금청구권의 우선순위 - 독일 보험계약법(VVG) 제118조를 중심으로 -

The Supreme Court's ruling(2021 DA 309576) and the Supreme Court's ruling(2017 DA 239014) set forth a new legal principle that if a fire causes multiple victims and the liability insurance fund cannot cover the damages of all the victims, the victim who exercises the right of direct claim will be paid in priority to the fire insurer who pays the fire insurance fund to the other victims and then subrogates the victim. The two decisions also shed new light on a variety of issues, including the determination that where the insurer on behalf of the victim (the direct claimant) is also the liability insurer of the perpetrator (the direct payer), whether confusion may occur depends on whether it is the other victim or the insurer on behalf of the other victim who is seeking payment of the liability insurance proceeds. In the case of multiple victims of a single insured accident, the priority of the various claimants in a situation where the liability insurance proceeds alone do not cover all the damages is not clearly defined and has not been discussed. The above Supreme Court decisions have drawn relatively reasonable conclusions based on the purpose of the liability insurance system, the system of insurer subrogation (Article 682 of the Commercial Code), and the victim's direct claim (Article 724 of the Commercial Code), but at the same time, they have identified a number of problems that are difficult to solve through the interpretation of the current law. Article 118 of the German Insurance Contracts Act (VVG) governs the order in which compulsory liability insurance proceeds must be paid to multiple claimants. It obliges the insurer to investigate the claims of the various victims, calculate their amounts, and distribute the liability insurance proceeds appropriately. Article 119 provides for the liability of the victim. These provisions of the German Insurance Contracts Act can serve as a useful guide for our own legislation.