An insurance lawyer in Turkey prepares and pursues claims under Turkish insurance policies, challenges denied or reduced payments before the Insurance Arbitration Commission (Sigorta Tahkim Komisyonu) or the courts, and advises insurers, brokers and foreign insurance groups on the same rules from the other side. A Turkish insurance contract is governed by the insurance book of the Turkish Commercial Code (Türk Ticaret Kanunu), by the general conditions (genel şartlar) approved for each line of business, and by the terms of the individual policy. The market is regulated and supervised by the Insurance and Private Pension Regulation and Supervision Agency (Sigortacılık ve Özel Emeklilik Düzenleme ve Denetleme Kurumu, SEDDK) under the Insurance Law (Sigortacılık Kanunu).
- After a loss: notify the insurer without delay and give it the documents it needs. The claim falls due when the insurer's investigation ends, and in any case 45 days after the notice, or 15 days in personal insurance such as life, accident and health insurance.
- If the insurer rejects or underpays: apply to it in writing first. After a rejection, or if there is no written answer within 15 business days, the claim can go to the Insurance Arbitration Commission or, after the required pre-suit step, to court.
- Time limit: claims under an insurance contract are time-barred two years after they fall due, and in any case six years after the loss.
How a Turkish insurance policy is built
Three layers decide what a policy covers. The first is the Commercial Code: many of its rules on disclosure, notification after a loss, the insurer's payment period and default cannot be changed to the detriment of the policyholder, the insured or the beneficiary, and a policy term that tries to do so is replaced by the statutory rule. The second is the general conditions for the relevant line of business, such as fire, casco, compulsory traffic, health or life insurance, which every policy in that line incorporates. The third is the policy schedule and its special conditions (özel şartlar), where the premium, sums insured, deductibles and many exclusions are set.
Before the contract is made, the insurer and its agent must inform the policyholder in writing about the contract and the policyholder's rights and duties, leaving reasonable time to review the terms. If this information is not given, the policyholder may object to the contract within 14 days, and the insurer bears the burden of proving that it informed the policyholder. Standard terms are also subject to the Turkish Code of Obligations (Türk Borçlar Kanunu): a standard term that the other party was not informed of and given the chance to read is treated as not written, and an unclear standard term is interpreted against the party that drafted it.
In our practice, many coverage disputes start with an incomplete file. Foreign policyholders often hold only the Turkish-language policy schedule issued through a bank or an agent, without the general and special conditions. Our first step is to obtain the full policy set and the pre-contract information form from the insurer, because whether an exclusion was properly incorporated and communicated decides more claims than the wording of the exclusion itself.
Disclosure before the contract and duties after a loss
When the contract is made, the policyholder must disclose every material fact that it knows or should know. Facts the insurer asked about in the proposal form, in writing or orally, are presumed to be material. If a material fact was not disclosed or was stated incorrectly, the insurer may withdraw from the contract or ask for the premium difference, but only within 15 days of learning of the breach; if the policyholder does not accept the premium difference within 10 days, the contract is treated as withdrawn. An insurer that already knew the true facts cannot rely on the breach.
After a loss has occurred, a disclosure breach does not automatically cancel the cover. The payment may be reduced according to the degree of fault, and the insurer is released from payment where the breach was intentional and connected to the loss. In the denial letters we review, the defence is often raised long after the insurer learned the facts, or relies on a question the proposal form never asked, so we check what was asked, what the insurer knew and when it learned it.
Once the insured event happens, the policyholder must notify the insurer without delay, and many general conditions also set a fixed period in days for the notice. Under the Commercial Code, a late or missing notice leads to a reduction of the payment according to the degree of fault only where it increased the amount the insurer has to pay, and not where the insurer learned of the loss in another way. The policyholder must also provide the information and documents needed to establish the loss and its amount, allow inspection and take reasonable steps; a breach of these duties is treated in the same way. A late notice is therefore rarely a complete defence, and we answer it with evidence of when and how the insurer learned of the loss.
Building the claim file and the insurer's payment period
A claim file should answer in advance the questions an insurer uses to delay or reduce payment. For a property loss, that means the loss notice, photographs, maintenance records that answer a wear-and-tear exclusion, invoices or repair quotations and, for business interruption, accounting records. For a liability claim, it means a chronology of the event, the third party's claim and a technical opinion where fault is disputed. The insurer usually appoints a licensed loss adjuster (sigorta eksperi) to assess the loss; the adjuster's report is evidence, not a decision, and it can be contested before the Commission or a court.
The Commercial Code fixes when the insurer must pay. The compensation or sum insured falls due when the insurer has completed its investigation after the loss and after receiving the documents relating to it, and in any case 45 days after the notice of loss; in personal insurance the period is 15 days. The period does not run while the investigation is delayed through a fault that cannot be attributed to the insurer. If the investigation is not completed within three months of the notice, the insurer must pay at least half of the loss or of the sum insured as an advance, determined by agreement or, in a dispute, by a preliminary expert examination ordered by the court. Once the payment is due, the insurer is in default without a separate reminder, and a policy term that releases the insurer from default interest is void.
In the files we handle, the most common delay technique is a series of separate document requests. We send the claim documents as one complete set, by a method that proves delivery, such as a notice served through a notary (ihtarname) or registered electronic mail (KEP), and we record the date from which the 45-day and three-month periods run. The steps of a claim are set out in our article on the insurance claims process in Turkey.
Challenging a denied or reduced claim
The first step after a rejection is a written application to the insurer that answers each ground of the denial and claims the amount in dispute. It is also a condition for the Insurance Arbitration Commission: the claimant may apply only after applying to the insurer, and only if the insurer rejected the claim in whole or in part or did not answer in writing within 15 business days. The Commission operates under the Insurance Law within the Insurance, Reinsurance and Pension Companies Association of Turkey (Türkiye Sigorta, Reasürans ve Emeklilik Şirketleri Birliği). Compulsory lines such as traffic and earthquake insurance are within its system; for voluntary lines such as casco, home or private health insurance, the route depends on the insurer's membership, which we confirm before filing.
The policyholder, the beneficiary and persons directly affected by the contract may apply, in person or through a lawyer. The arbitrator decides within four months of appointment unless the parties agree in writing to extend the period, and the award can be enforced through the enforcement office (İcra Dairesi) like a court judgment. Awards below a monetary threshold are final; above it, an objection is heard within the Commission, and above a higher threshold the award on objection can be appealed. The thresholds are updated every January, so the route is checked on the filing date. The same dispute cannot be pursued before the Commission and a court at the same time. Practice may vary by authority and year.
A court action is the alternative. Before filing, a money claim against an insurer usually goes through a statutory mediation meeting (arabuluculuk) under the rules for commercial or consumer disputes; for claims against a compulsory traffic insurer, the Court of Cassation (Yargıtay) has treated the written application to the insurer as the required pre-suit step, although lower courts have not all followed that view. Claims under an insurance contract are time-barred two years after the claim falls due and, in any case, six years after the loss, so we calculate the limitation date before any settlement talks begin. The usual denial grounds and the answers to them are explained in our article on insurance claim denial in Turkey.
Traffic accidents: compulsory traffic insurance, casco and the Güvence Hesabı
Two policies meet in most traffic files. Compulsory traffic insurance (zorunlu mali sorumluluk sigortası) covers the liability of the vehicle's owner and operator towards third parties for death, bodily injury and property damage, up to limits that are updated periodically. Casco (kasko) is voluntary cover for damage to the policyholder's own vehicle. A third party claims against the traffic insurer of the vehicle at fault; the owner of a damaged vehicle may claim under its own casco policy, and the casco insurer then pursues the party at fault.
Before suing a traffic insurer, the injured person must apply to it in writing; if the insurer does not answer within 15 days or the answer does not meet the claim, the claim can go to court or to the Commission. The application includes the accident report (kaza tespit tutanağı), the documents on fault, medical reports and, in a death claim, the certificate of inheritance and income evidence. Where the vehicle at fault had no compulsory insurance, could not be identified, or its insurer cannot pay, the claim is made to the Güvence Hesabı, a statutory account that pays within the compulsory limits after a written application and is part of the Commission system. Amounts above the limits, and claims for non-pecuniary damages, are pursued against the driver and the owner in court. Serious injury claims are covered on our personal injury lawyer page.
Vehicle damage claims often stall on the loss adjuster's report. Under a recent SEDDK circular, in casco and compulsory traffic material damage files, where the insurer appointed an adjuster in time and the report could not be completed for reasons that are not attributable to the insurer, and this is recorded in the systems of the Insurance Information and Monitoring Centre (SBGM), the claim is not yet treated as rejected for the purpose of a Commission application. We therefore check the SBGM record before filing, so that an application is not dismissed as premature. Practice may vary by authority and year.
Earthquake, property, health and life insurance disputes
Compulsory earthquake insurance under the Disaster Insurance Law (Afet Sigortaları Kanunu), issued through the Turkish Catastrophe Insurance Pool (DASK), applies to privately owned residential buildings registered with the Land Registry and to the commercial and office units inside them, whoever the owner is. The owner or the holder of a usufruct right must buy the policy and renew it every year. The Land Registry (Tapu Müdürlüğü) does not register a transaction on such a unit unless the policy is in force on the transaction date, and a new water or electricity subscription also requires it. Contents and values above the policy limits need a separate home or fire policy. Our article on compulsory earthquake insurance for foreign homeowners sets out the steps.
Private health insurance disputes usually turn on three points: whether a condition existed before the policy started and was disclosed, whether the treatment was received from a provider outside the insurer's contracted network, and whether the treatment was medically necessary rather than elective. Each is answered with medical records and the policy's own definitions, and the disclosure rules above apply to a pre-existing condition defence. Health insurance required for a residence permit raises its own questions about scope and renewal, explained in our guide to health insurance in Turkey.
Life insurance claims fall due 15 days after the notice of death at the latest, under the same payment rule as other personal insurance. Disputes arise over undisclosed medical conditions, unclear beneficiary designations, a beneficiary who died before the insured, or a policy securing a bank loan where the bank and the heirs disagree over the payment. Where the beneficiary question overlaps with an estate, we coordinate the insurance claim with the inheritance procedure, including the certificate of inheritance (mirasçılık belgesi) issued by a notary or a court.
Representing insurers, brokers and foreign insurance groups
For insurers, we review coverage decisions before they are sent. A denial that relies on a late-notice argument without evidence that the delay increased the loss, or on an exclusion that was not incorporated and communicated, exposes the insurer to the claim amount, default interest from the due date and the claimant's legal costs. A reasoned partial acceptance, or a specific request for missing documents within the investigation period, is usually the better position. We also act for insurers, brokers and agents in SEDDK inspections and administrative proceedings, answering each finding separately.
When an insurer pays a claim, it steps into the insured's position by law, up to the amount paid, and may pursue the insured's claim against the person responsible; it may also continue a lawsuit the insured had already filed. Because the recourse claim (rücu) is the insured's own claim against the third party, its limitation period is that of the underlying claim, and it runs regardless of how long the insurer took to pay. We track that date from the loss, preserve the liability evidence while the claim is adjusted, and enforce recovered judgments and awards as described on our enforcement and bankruptcy law page.
A foreign insurer or reinsurer may operate in Turkey only through a Turkish company or a branch licensed for that purpose, and insurance agents in Turkey may not act for insurers established abroad. Multinational groups therefore decide which Turkish risks are written locally, which are placed through a local fronting policy reinsured to the group programme, and how claims move between the two. Reinsurance disputes are usually decided under the arbitration clause of the reinsurance contract, and commercial court proceedings are discussed in our article on commercial litigation in Turkey. ER&GUN&ER Law Firm acts for policyholders, beneficiaries, injured parties, insurers and brokers, in English for international clients, and an overview of our practice areas is on the lawyers in Turkey page.
Frequently asked questions
- How long does an insurer in Turkey have to pay a claim? The claim falls due when the insurer completes its investigation, and in any case 45 days after the notice of loss, or 15 days in life, accident and health insurance. If the investigation is not completed within three months, the insurer must pay at least half of the loss as an advance.
- What can I do if my insurer rejects my claim? Send a written application that answers each ground of the rejection. If the insurer maintains the rejection or does not answer in writing within 15 business days, you can apply to the Insurance Arbitration Commission or, after the required pre-suit step, go to court.
- Can I apply to the Insurance Arbitration Commission without a lawyer? Yes. The policyholder, the beneficiary and persons directly affected by the contract may apply in person or through a lawyer. For voluntary policies, check first that the insurer is part of the Commission system.
- Can the insurer refuse to pay because of a mistake in my application form? Only for a material fact. The insurer must withdraw or ask for a premium difference within 15 days of learning of the breach. After a loss, the payment may be reduced according to the degree of fault, and the insurer is released only where the breach was intentional and connected to the loss.
- What is the time limit for an insurance claim in Turkey? Two years from the date the claim falls due, and in any case six years from the date of the loss.
- Who pays if the vehicle that hit me had no insurance? The Güvence Hesabı, a statutory account, pays within the compulsory traffic insurance limits after a written application. Amounts above the limits are claimed from the driver and the owner of the vehicle.
- Is earthquake insurance compulsory for foreign property owners in Turkey? Yes, for privately owned residential units registered with the Land Registry, whatever the owner's nationality. The policy must be renewed every year, and the Land Registry does not register a transaction on the unit without it.
Author: Av. Mirkan Günay Topcu, Managing Partner, ER&GUN&ER Law Firm, Istanbul Bar No. 67874. His practice covers insurance and commercial disputes, enforcement and insolvency, and cross-border matters for foreign companies and individuals. He graduated from Istanbul University Faculty of Law in 2018 and completed an LL.M. at Galatasaray University in 2022. Profile · LinkedIn
