Disputes between private individuals and insurance companies should be heard by consumer courts rather than commercial courts when neither side is acting as a merchant, Türkiye’s Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) has ruled in a decision published in the Official Gazette on Friday.
The ruling by the court’s 4th Civil Chamber, reported by NTV, could change where many policyholders have to file lawsuits against insurers and may affect cases already pending in the wrong court.
A car that was never in the accident
The case was brought by a car owner who said his vehicle had not been involved in a traffic accident, yet an insurance company had opened a claim file and entered a record about it in SİSBİS, the sector’s shared database for suspected insurance abuse. Such entries can be checked by other insurers and may affect how a driver is treated when buying or claiming on a policy.
The owner asked the court to declare the record unlawful and have it corrected. A commercial court of first instance in Istanbul’s Anatolian side agreed, finding insufficient evidence that his car had been in the accident, and ordered the record fixed.
The Ministry of Justice then filed an extraordinary appeal "in the interest of the law" (kanun yararına temyiz), a procedure used to settle a legal point without changing the outcome for the parties. It argued that the commercial court should not have heard the case at all.
Consumer law applies
The chamber agreed. It held that the relationship between an insurer and a vehicle owner who is not a merchant and does not use the car commercially is a consumer transaction under Law No. 6502 on Consumer Protection. The insurer is the "provider" and the driver the "consumer", and the insurance rules in the Turkish Commercial Code do not prevent consumer law from applying.
Because a court’s jurisdiction is a matter of public order, judges must check it at every stage, the ruling said. The first court should therefore have declared itself without jurisdiction and sent the file to a consumer court (tüketici mahkemesi). The decision was overturned in principle, while the car owner keeps the result he won.
What it means for foreign residents
Foreigners who own a car or a home in Türkiye deal with insurers regularly, from compulsory traffic insurance (trafik sigortası) and kasko to home and health cover. The ruling suggests that a private policyholder with a dispute should look first at the consumer route: smaller claims usually start at a consumer arbitration committee (tüketici hakem heyeti), and larger ones at a consumer court. Filing in the wrong court can cost months.
NTV said the decision could affect all insurance cases, but the reasoning is tied to consumer-type relationships and does not cover commercial policies. Anyone with a specific dispute should take advice from a Turkish lawyer. Our moving to Türkiye checklist covers insurance and other paperwork, and the coming e-Devlet changes for passport holders affect how foreigners access official records online.
Sources
Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm / Unsplash License, via Unsplash
