Dismissed after failure to supplement petition (in Korean).

On April 29, 2025, Consumers Korea, a consumer group, filed an unfair terms review request with the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) against five major non-life insurers — Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, DB Insurance, Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance, Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance, and KB Insurance — seeking a declaration that the natural disaster exclusion clauses in their Personal Automobile Insurance Policies (Articles 8(1)(4), 14(5), 19(5), and 23(3)) are unlawful and void under Articles 6 and 7(2) of the Terms and Conditions Act, and an administrative guidance that the clauses be deleted or amended.

The petitioner's core argument was that the traditional "force majeure" justification for such exclusions is no longer tenable: the respondent insurers have themselves materially contributed to the climate crisis — and thereby to the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters such as typhoons, floods, and wildfires — through their insured emission and financed emissions attributable to underwriting and investing in fossil fuel industries, making it unjust for them to invoke force majeure to deny coverage for losses caused by the very disasters their own activities have helped intensify, while profiting from selling separate natural disaster riders to policyholders who seek coverage that should already be included in the base policy.

On June 11, 2025, the KFTC closed the petition without a full review on the ground that it is impossible to conduct a review based solely on the submitted petition.

KFTC Review Request on Unfair Terms in Personal Auto Insurance Policies

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KFTC Review Request on Unfair Terms in Personal Auto Insurance Policies - decision

Filed

South Korea

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An aim to achieve a quantifiable outcome within a given time-frame, set by an institution such as a national government.

Policy instruments are techniques or tools used by governing authorities to promote certain policies in order to achieve predetermined goals. Put simply, instruments are how a government tries to achieve its goals, with this taxonomy being focused on national policy instruments.

Risk is the potential for adverse consequences resulting from the dynamic interplay between (climate-related) hazards, exposure, and vulnerability of affected human or ecological systems.

Groups  of people who are adversely affected by climate change or the response to it

A set of principles, processes, and practices that build economic and political power to shift from an extractive economy to a regenerative economy.

Justice is the ethical and political framework that addresses fairness, including issues of responsibility, rights, and structural inequity.

Renewable energy means all forms of energy produced from renewable sources in a sustainable manner.

Fossil fuel is a generic term for non-renewable energy sources such as coal, fossil gas, and oil (including crude oil, and petroleum products), that can be used for electricity and heat generation. Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons formed from pressurised and heated organic material buried over millions of years.

Molecules in the atmosphere that play a key role in the greenhouse effect by trapping heat radiating from Earth’s surface.

Area of the economy in which actors engage in identical or related activities.

In human systems, the process of adjustment to actual or expected climate change and its effects, in order to moderate harm, increase resilience or exploit beneficial opportunities. In natural systems, the process of adjustment to actual climate change and its effects; human intervention may facilitate adjustment to expected climate change and its effects.

The management and allocation of funds, assets and investments to meet various objectives