Insurance policies

The insurance agreement is documented in an insurance policy. The policy is a deed that serves as proof of the insurance agreement. The policy consists of the policy schedule and the corresponding insurance conditions.
In this policy is documented the schedule, the conditions and the risk that the insurer and the insured wish to insure. Policy conditions usually contain general conditions, special conditions and/or special clauses.

There are different kinds of policies: the company policy, the exchange policy and the broker policy.

At the request of an insurance broker on behalf of the insured party, the company is sometimes willing to alter the policy according to the latter’s wishes.
An insurance company’s policy usually has the character of a so-called 'contrat d'adhésion', ie an agreement whose content is unilaterally determined by one party (the insurer), which the other party (the policyholder) can only accept unchanged. The company is sometimes prepared to change the conditions at the request of an insurance broker on behalf of the insured party.

Exchange policies are standardised policies that meet the needs of the insurance exchange transactions. Examples of standard policies may be found on the VNAB website.
Exchange policies originated from the need to have a document that includes the conditions so they are known in advance and would not only be suitable for smaller insurable objects, but would, in particular, be suitable for when a large number of insurers are required. They have evolved through the cooperation between (exchange) insurers and (exchange) brokers.

Last is the broker policy, which is a policy in which the conditions have been drawn up by an insurance broker. In practice, most large brokerage firms have developed their own conditions on the basis of the VNAB-models, which in turn are used as a basis for individual insurance agreements.

For the interpretation of the policy conditions, it may be important to know how they were drafted and who created them.