Court of Justice: EU law is not a bar to the assignment of claims for compensation under a motor vehicle civil liability insurance policy | In Principle

On 25 June 2026 the Court of Justice of the European Union issued a judgment of great importance for the Polish motor vehicle insurance sector. The ruling in C-277/25, Helpfind Funding, responded to a request for a preliminary ruling from the Gdynia District Court.

The Polish court’s doubts concerned a situation that commonly occurs on the market, in which the injured party assigns to a third party (typically a company specialising in this practice) its right to receive compensation from the insurance company whose insured caused a traffic accident. The Court of Justice was requested to determine whether EU regulations pose a barrier to the conclusion of assignment agreements of this type. The questions presented also concerned the possibility of regarding the assignee company as an injured party, and its procedural standing to assert a claim against the insurer.

The facts in the case and the questions from the Gdynia court

The disputes in the case arose out of damage to a total of five vehicles in automobile accidents. The injured owners had obtained compensation from the perpetrators’ civil liability insurers. But the owners regarded the amounts of compensation as inadequate, and decided to enter into an assignment agreement with companies essentially specialising in acquiring and enforcing claims. Based on these agreements, the businesses, as assignees, acquired for consideration the unsatisfied claims which the assignors believed they still held against the insurance companies. In each case, the claim was essentially for the difference between the estimated value of the total remedy for the material loss suffered, and the compensation already paid out to the injured party.

After concluding these assignment agreements, the assignees filed suit in the Gdynia District Court against the insurance companies in question. The insurers alleged in their defence that the compensation already paid fully covered the losses suffered. They also challenged the assignee’s standing to bring suit, arguing that under the applicable Polish national law, the assignment agreements were invalid because of the disproportion between the amount of compensation pursued by the assignees under these agreements and the consideration received by the assignors under the same agreements.

The referring court pointed out that under Polish law and the established interpretation of the law made by national courts, claims arising out of property damage incurred as a result of motor vehicle accidents are not personal to the injured party, which means that the nature of these claims is not a barrier to assignment of the claims, and thus the assignment agreements which were the subject of the proceeding before the referring court cannot be deemed invalid.

However, the national court had doubts respecting the compliance of national law with the principal objective of Directive 2009/103/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 relating to insurance against civil liability in respect of the use of motor vehicles, and the enforcement of the obligation to insure against such liability (codified version)—namely, protection of the victims of motor vehicle accidents—with respect to whether the remuneration received by assignors under assignment agreements is proportionate to the amount of compensation sought from insurance companies based on the assignment agreements. For these reasons, the Gdynia District Court decided to stay the proceeding and refer the following questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:

1. Should Articles 3, 18 and 28 of Directive [2009/103] be interpreted as precluding a finding that a contract is valid and enforceable if it has been concluded with [an injured party] who, having not previously received full compensation for loss or injury sustained as a result of an accident, assigns to a third party his or her right to obtain full compensation from the insurance company covering the person responsible for the accident caused by the use of a vehicle?
2. Should the above articles be interpreted as precluding recognition of the third party discussed in the first question as a person entitled to compensation in respect of any loss or injury caused by vehicles, in accordance with Article 1(2) of Directive 2009/103?
3. Should the above articles of Directive 2009/103 be interpreted as precluding a finding that the third party described in the first question has locus standi to bring a direct action against the insurance company referred to in that question?

Court of Justice ruling

First, the Court of Justice pointed out that there is no provision in Directive 2009/103 governing the assignment to a third party of a claim arising from insurance against civil liability in respect of motor vehicles by persons who have suffered material damage as a result of road traffic accidents, or governing the standing of assignees before national courts to enforce the payment of such claims. The court stressed that the aim of Directive 2009/103 is to ensure that injury to third-party victims in traffic accidents is covered by civil liability insurance. But this issue is distinct from the extent of the compensation that victims are entitled to—an issue governed by national law.

The court went on to observe that the assignees in the case do not derive their rights from the Polish provisions governing civil liability, but solely from the assignment contracts they concluded with the injured vehicle owners. For these reasons, the court found that the assignees cannot be regarded as “injured parties” under Art. 1(2) of the directive.

On the issue of standing, the Court of Justice indicated that the assignees’ right to file suit directly against the insurance company does not arise under EU law, but is based on national law (in this case, Art. 509 in connection with Art. 822 §4 of the Polish Civil Code). This situation is not covered by Art. 18 of Directive 2009/103, under which the member states must ensure that any party injured in a traffic accident can bring a direct action against the responsible party’s insurer.

This reasoning led the Court of Justice to hold that Art. 1(2) and Art. 3, 18 and 28 of Directive 2009/103 “must be interpreted as not precluding national legislation according to which a person who has suffered material damage as a result of a motor vehicle accident and who has received compensation for that damage from the insurance undertaking covering motor vehicle civil liability, but who believes that that compensation does not fully remedy that damage, is permitted to assign to a third party, in return for payment, his or her claim, equal to the difference between the estimated value of the full compensation of that damage and the compensation which he or she has already been paid by that insurance undertaking, so that that third party may bring legal proceedings, in its own name and on its own behalf, to seek payment of that claim from that undertaking.”

Summary—the Polish market and insurance disputes with assignees

The ruling by the Court of Justice of 25 June 2026 in C-277/25, Helpfind Funding, confirmed that Directive 2009/103 does not regulate the assignment of claims arising under motor vehicle civil liability insurance, nor assignees’ standing to bring suit, and thus does not preclude national regulations allowing an injured party to assign to a third party a claim for additional compensation from the insurer, and allowing the acquirer of such claims to seek payment from the insurer in its own name and on its own behalf.

However, the court also held that the mere fact of the assignment does not make the assignee an “injured party” for purposes of the directive, because its rights are derived from the assignment agreement and do not arise directly from the traffic accident.

This ruling has a major practical dimension for the Polish auto insurance market, because it confirms the permissibility of trading in claims under civil liability insurance policies, while at the same clarifying that such trading is a matter for national law. This means that insurers cannot rely on Directive 2009/103 as a basis for invalidating assignment agreements made between injured parties and debt collection companies or firms specialising in pursuing claims for damages.

But even though EU law does not bar the assignment of claims for compensation, the court considering the case brought by the assignee may—and in certain instances must—examine the validity of the assignment agreement itself on which the claimant bases its standing to bring suit. The possibility of such oversight has been confirmed in a resolution by a seven-judge panel of the Supreme Court of Poland (case no. III CZP 68/18), in which the court held that the alienability of claims for compensation does not in itself exclude assignment agreements from review in light of the general rules on the validity of transactions (Civil Code Art. 58) or the provisions on protection of consumers against impermissible contractual clauses (Civil Code Art. 385¹). The Supreme Court stressed how important it is to review the prices paid to acquire claims, the fees charged for debt collection services, and the terms of payment—issues which the court regarded as “undoubtedly of great sensitivity to society.”

Consequently, the insurer may raise in its defence in claims brought by assignees that the assignment agreement is invalid because it violates public policy (Civil Code Art. 58 §2), in particular if the agreement was made by exploiting the assignee’s professional advantage over the consumer assignor—for example when the assignor granted blanket authority to an employee of the assignee, without knowledge of the terms or price for the assignment.

Another example of this line of reasoning can be seen in the Człuchów District Court judgment of 7 May 2025 (case no. I C 175/24), in which the court dismissed a suit by a professional acquirer of compensation claims, finding that the plaintiff lacked standing, due to the invalidity of the assignment agreement under Civil Code Art. 58 §2. There the court pointed out that the assignment agreement was lacking an enclosure which was supposed to contain information on the price for acquisition of the claim, thus preventing an assessment of whether the consideration provided by the parties was proportional, or whether the purchase price was grossly understated in relation to the value of the acquired claim.

In that case, the lack of transparency surrounding the terms of the assignment was crucial. The court stressed that because the assignee acquired the claim from an injured party who was a consumer, it must first be examined whether the consumer was aware of the amount of compensation which they could have pursued on their own, whether they were informed of this by the professional counterparty, and whether the price offered was adequate. Failure to demonstrate these circumstances led the court to hold that the assignment agreement conflicted with the legal principle that the immediately injured party should be fully compensated (Civil Code Art. 58 in connection with Art. 361 and 363).

Mateusz Kosiorowski, adwokat, Klaudiusz Mikołajczyk, Insurance practice, Wardyński & Partners