Generically, the term of insurance means a set of various kinds of measures (legal, economic etc.), meant to eliminate patrimonial consequences caused by the emergence of some events causing prejudice (called, in this case, insured risks).
In a more restrictive (legal) sense, insurance is a contract by means of which one of the parties, called insurer, undertakes to pay an amount of money (insurance premium) to the other party, called assured, and who, when a risk occurs (the insured case), will pay to the assured (beneficiary or third party injured) the insurance indemnity (compensation or insured amount).
In the legal literature, but also in the judicial practice, we often encounter this question: what is the legal nature of insurance relations: civil or commercial?
The above question is important in establishing the rules governing the insurance contract and I’ll try to provide you an answer.
Please note that, didactically speaking, they adjudicated the rule according to which terrestrial insurances (defined by art. 3 section 17 of the Commercial Code as commercial facts, but which represent the common law in the insurance field) are studied within the civil law discipline, and the other insurances (maritime, aerial, international etc.) within some other disciplines (transports law, international trade law etc.).
To conclude, the insurance contract may be of commercial type or of commercial-civil type, just like insurance relations are of commercial type, both for the assured and for the insurer, or mixed (when the contract is a commercial fact for the insurer and of civil type for the assured).
In my paper I want to clarify those aspects regarding the legal nature of the insurance contract and others that may influence the current legal and economical practice.