The loi Badinter: your right to compensation without having to prove fault

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What the Act guarantees

The loi Badinter covers all victims of an accident involving a motorised land vehicle (car, lorry, motorcycle, bus, etc.), on public roads as well as on private land.

• Pedestrians and cyclists are compensated except in the case of inexcusable fault on their part — a notion assessed very strictly by the courts, and therefore rare in practice.
• Passengers are compensated in all cases, including by the driver of their own vehicle. Any fault on their part can reduce their compensation only in very limited circumstances.
• The driver is compensated unless his or her own fault contributed to the accident; that share of liability is then deducted from the compensation.

The insurer's duty to make an offer

The insurer of the vehicle involved is required to put forward an offer of compensation within a strict statutory deadline:

• 8 months from the date of the accident for serious personal injury (or 3 months from the victim's request).
• 3 months if the victim's condition has stabilised (consolidation) within 3 months.

Failure to meet these deadlines exposes the insurer to financial penalties. Where the offer is insufficient or late, the victim may refer the matter to the insurance ombudsman (médiateur de l'assurance) or to the court.

What the Act does not guarantee: the amount

The loi Badinter guarantees the right to compensation, not its level. The insurer's initial offer rarely matches the actual harm suffered — it is based on internal scales that do not always take into account every head of loss under the nomenclature Dintilhac (the standard French classification of personal-injury losses: cost of assistance by a third party, impact on professional life, loss of amenity, and so on).

This is precisely where a dedicated lawyer comes in: analysing the offer head of loss by head of loss, identifying under-valuations, negotiating or, where necessary, bringing the matter before the court so that each item of harm is fully valued.

Victims of multiple vehicles

Where several vehicles are involved, their insurers are jointly and severally liable. The victim addresses a claim to any one of them (or to the FGAO — Fonds de garantie des assurances obligatoires, France's guarantee fund for compulsory insurance — where the driver is unknown or uninsured); it is then for the insurers to settle the apportionment of the burden among themselves.

Official source: Loi n° 85-677 du 5 juillet 1985 — Légifrance →