DENMARK Law and Practice Contributed by: Josefine Movin Østergaard and Johannes Hedegaard, Bruun & Hjejle
subrogation routes could materially affect insurers’ recovery strategies and manufacturers’ liability exposure. • All-risks construction insurance – in UfR 2025.2008 / FED 2025.63, concerning a LEG3 extension, the Eastern High Court held that foreseeability must be assessed at policy inception, not retrospectively. The judgment confirms that all-risk policies may cover defective workmanship and limits insurers’ ability to deny coverage merely because a contrac- tor should have recognised the risk. These trends are prompting insurers to adopt broad- er exclusions and higher premiums, while insureds increasingly challenge coverage denials through liti- gation. 4.2 Policy Wordings and Interpretation Developments Insurance policies are primarily interpreted accord- ing to their wording. For standard-form contracts, the contra proferentem rule ( koncipistregel ) may apply, construing ambiguous terms against the insurer. How- ever, for individually negotiated provisions or agreed documents, this rule carries little weight. In such cas- es, interpretation extends beyond the literal wording to include the objective and commercial rationale of the provision. A recent high-profile example is the Nilfisk case (Jan- uary 2026), in which the Eastern High Court ( Østre Landsret ) ruled in favour of the insurer. The dispute concerned insurance coverage for tornado damage to Nilfisk’s US distribution centre. The insurer success- fully argued that a monetary cap on natural disaster coverage in the master policy applied, even though the cap did not appear in the local policy. Nilfisk had initially won at the City Court ( byretten ), but the insurer appealed and prevailed at the High Court. The insurer’s claim amounted to EUR17 million, but with interest and costs, Nilfisk faced potential liability of EUR23 million. The case, which had been ongoing since October 2022, illustrates how policy interpreta- tion disputes can result in significant financial expo- sure and protracted litigation through the Danish court system.
For consumer contracts, the contra proferentem rule is codified in Section 38b of the Danish Contracts Act ( aftaleloven ), which provides that if doubt arises as to the interpretation of a contract term that has not been individually negotiated, the term shall be interpreted in the manner most favourable to the consumer. A recent example of its application is the Danish Insur- ance Complaint Board’s decision of 5 February 2025 (case 102526), concerning whether a DKK200,000 coverage cap for “treatment abroad” applied when the treatment was also available in Denmark. The Board found an ambiguity between the coverage summary and the policy terms, as the coverage summary omit- ted the word “private” when describing treatments “not offered in Denmark”. The Board interpreted the ambiguity in favour of the insured, holding that the coverage cap only applies if the treatment is not offered in Denmark in either the public or private sec- tor. 4.3 Cyber and Technology-Related Coverage Issues Cyber and technology coverage disputes are an emerging area in Denmark. While no landmark court decisions have been issued yet, the increasing preva- lence of cyber incidents is expected to generate new coverage questions. The implementation of the EU’s Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) within the Danish financial regulation, as reflected in recent amendments to the Danish Financial Business Act ( lov om finansiel virk - somhed ), imposes operational resilience requirements on financial undertakings, including insurers, which may over time generate disputes about coverage for technology failures and cyber events. Danish insurers are increasingly introducing cyber exclusions in traditional policies while offering stan- dalone cyber products. Key areas likely to produce disputes include: • war/hostile-act exclusions applied to state-spon- sored cyberattacks; • “systemic event” language in cyber policies; • business interruption claims from IT failures or ransomware; and
92 I NSURANCE L I T IGATI O N 2026
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