insurance policy

noun · Versicherungsschein / Versicherungspolice

Policy names two things in English, the contract and the document evidencing it, and German separates them: the contract is the Versicherungsvertrag, the document the Versicherungsschein, in commercial usage the Police. Which one a sentence means decides the rendering, and the calque built on Politik turns an insurance document into a policy statement.

Which translation, when

Versicherungsscheinthe document: the paper the insurer issues to evidence the contract, called Police in commercial usage; its arrival starts a statutory clock, since under § 33 Abs. 1 VVG the single or first premium falls due without undue delay once fourteen days have passed since the Versicherungsschein reached the policyholder, and practitioners speak of the Nachtrag where an amendment is documented.

Versicherungsvertragthe contract: where the English sentence means the agreement, the cover or the terms, German says Versicherungsvertrag, Versicherungsschutz or Versicherungsbedingungen; under the policy is unter dem Versicherungsvertrag rather than unter dem Versicherungsschein, and policy wording is Bedingungswerk, so the translator sorts by what the sentence asserts, a document or an obligation.

Politik als Fallethe calque: policy in the other English sense is Politik, a course of action, and machine output regularly writes it into insurance texts, where it produces sentences about the insurance policy of a company that read as statements of corporate strategy; the fixed terms are Versicherungsschein and Police, and neither carries the strategy sense.

Why

Insurance policy looks like an easy pair and is not, because the English noun carries two referents that German splits. Where the sentence means the document, German says Versicherungsschein, the paper the insurer issues to evidence the contract, with Police as the commercial synonym and Nachtrag for a documented amendment. That document is not a mere receipt: its arrival starts the statutory payment clock, since under § 33 Abs. 1 VVG the single or first premium falls due without undue delay once fourteen days have passed since the Versicherungsschein reached the policyholder, a longer period applying in life insurance. Where the sentence means the relationship rather than the paper, German reaches for other words: Versicherungsvertrag for the contract, Versicherungsschutz for the cover, Versicherungsbedingungen or Bedingungswerk for the terms. English sentences make the difference easy to miss, since the policy provides, under the policy and the policy expires all point at the contractual layer while the policy is enclosed points at the document, and a rendering that puts Versicherungsschein everywhere produces German in which obligations arise from a piece of paper. Then there is the calque. Policy in its other English sense is Politik, a course of action, and machine output carries that word into insurance texts, producing sentences about a company’s Versicherungspolitik that a German reader takes for corporate strategy rather than for cover. Neither Versicherungsschein nor Police has that sense, which is exactly why they are the safe words.

Typical mistakes

Policy means the document and the contract, so using Versicherungsschein throughout makes obligations appear to arise from a sheet of paper.
The arrival of the Versicherungsschein starts the payment period of § 33 Abs. 1 VVG, so the document has legal consequences a loose rendering hides.
Politik is the strategy sense of policy, so carrying it into an insurance text turns cover into corporate policy.

What matters

Translating policy documents for a German client: the rendering should say Versicherungsschein or Police for the paper, Versicherungsvertrag or Versicherungsschutz where the sentence means the cover, and never let the strategy sense of policy into the text.

Authority

§ 33 VVG

What the machine misses

Left to the engine, insurance policy becomes Versicherungspolitik, a word about corporate strategy, or Versicherungsschein in sentences that mean the contract; German separates the document, Versicherungsschein or Police, from the relationship, Versicherungsvertrag and Versicherungsschutz, and the machine choice regularly makes obligations flow from a sheet of paper.

See what the machine does with this clause →

Examples

the insurance policy is enclosed	der Versicherungsschein liegt bei
under the policy	nach dem Versicherungsvertrag
the policy wording	das Bedingungswerk
an endorsement to the policy	ein Nachtrag zum Versicherungsschein

More notes on these sections

policyholder Versicherungsnehmer