France: Exclusion of coverage

Departing from previous case law, the French Supreme Court has ruled that a clause according to which an insurer denies coverage for claims resulting from the lack of necessary repairs or maintenance, whether before or after the occurrence of the damage, except in cases of Force Majeure, is valid under Article L. 113-1 of the French Insurance Code, pursuant to which all these exclusions of coverage must be "formal and limited". In the present case, the Court ruled that the insurer could deny coverage after it had been established that the insured knew about the water leakage which resulted in the claim and about the lack of necessary repairs (French Supreme Court, 3 October 2013, no. 12-23684).