Legal protection insurance: One in five insured people already uses it

Over 26 million contracts

This insurance is becoming increasingly popular

Pursuing disputes in court is expensive. Legal protection insurance promises help and is being used more and more frequently.

Anyone who has this insurance also uses it: according to the insurers’ association, there were 26.2 million legal protection insurance policies in Germany in 2025. At the same time, insured people made use of their legal protection insurance 5.1 million times last year. In purely mathematical terms, almost every fifth insured person has actually made use of their legal protection insurance.

Over the past few years, more and more people in this country have taken out legal protection insurance. In 2005 there were still 19.5 million contracts – almost seven million contracts fewer than last year.

At the same time, the number of claims has increased significantly, from 3.5 million (2005) to 5.1 million – an increase of 45 percent. One driver: stress at work. The insurer Arag provided last Significantly more cases of benefits in employment law protection, mainly in dismissal protection claims.

The Germans have recently been less and less able to live up to their reputation as “litigators”. From 2005 to 2019, the number of new proceedings in local and regional courts fell significantly.

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Anyone who decides to take out a policy should, in addition to the insured sum, also make sure that the contract covers a so-called deciding factor. This is relevant if the insurer rejects legal protection due to low chances of success. Insured parties can then hire a lawyer who will prepare a reasoned opinion on the prospects of success in a legal dispute – the result is binding for the insurer.

However, according to the GDV, insurers pay in the vast majority of cases. In less than 0.3 percent of all coverage requests, the insurer refused legal protection. However, this number should be viewed with caution: due to the underlying Opinion poll of the GDV, only some of the companies took part. The market share of the participating companies was only around 50 percent. In how many cases of coverage requests the other insurers covered the costs is unknown.