excess
noun · Selbstbeteiligung
In insurance the excess is the Selbstbeteiligung, the share of a loss the policyholder carries himself, with Selbstbehalt as the equivalent term and deductible as the American word for the same thing. It rests on the contract rather than on a statutory provision, and the everyday sense of excess as a surplus is the trap the machine walks into.
Which translation, when
Why
Excess in an insurance sentence is the Selbstbeteiligung, the part of each loss the policyholder carries himself before the insurer pays, and the translation is a matter of market vocabulary rather than of statute, since German insurance law leaves the figure to the contract. Practice offers two interchangeable words, Selbstbeteiligung and Selbstbehalt, and states the amount either as a fixed sum for each insured event, as a percentage of the loss, often with a minimum and a maximum, or as an annual aggregate figure; in every version the point is the same, the policyholder takes the small losses and pays a lower premium for it. The surrounding vocabulary needs a light hand. Deductible is the American term for the identical concept and translates identically. Retention belongs to reinsurance, where it names the share the ceding insurer keeps, and excess of loss is a reinsurance structure that German market language leaves in English. Eigenanteil, which looks tempting, lives in health-cost and social-insurance contexts and reads oddly in a property or liability policy. The real risk, though, is the everyday meaning of the English word. Outside insurance excess denotes a surplus or the amount by which something exceeds a limit, and a machine trained on that sense writes Überschuss into a claims letter, where it reverses the direction of the money: a German reader understands a sum the insurer pays out or refunds, not a sum the policyholder must bear. The safe words are Selbstbeteiligung and Selbstbehalt, and a translation should also carry through whether the figure applies per event or per year, since that detail changes the amount actually payable.
Typical mistakes
- Excess in insurance is the share the policyholder bears, so rendering it with the surplus sense reverses who pays.
- Selbstbeteiligung rests on the contract and not on a statutory rule, so a translation should carry the policy figure through rather than assume a standard amount.
- Retention and excess of loss are reinsurance terms, so using them for a policy excess misplaces the text in the reinsurance market.
What matters
Working through a claims settlement for a German insured: the letter should say Selbstbeteiligung or Selbstbehalt, state whether the figure applies per insured event or per year, and keep the reinsurance vocabulary out of a direct-insurance text.
What the machine misses
Fed to a machine, excess comes back as Überschuss or Übermaß, words that describe money left over, and the insurance term is the Selbstbeteiligung, the share of each loss the policyholder carries himself; the calque reverses the direction of payment and hides that the figure comes from the contract and not from any statutory rule.
Examples
| an excess of 500 euros | eine Selbstbeteiligung von 500 Euro |
| the excess is deducted from the settlement | die Selbstbeteiligung wird von der Entschädigung abgezogen |
| a policy without an excess | ein Vertrag ohne Selbstbehalt |
| deductible | Selbstbeteiligung |