Frequently asked questions

That always depends on what it involves. I know my clients' time is precious, so I aim to keep the process moving quickly, using modern, digital tools.

Insurance premiums already include the running costs of insurers and advisers. I don't charge for meetings or advice.

No: you don't pay a separate fee for the broker's involvement – the premium is determined by the insurer's tariff. Comparing offers often results in better value for money; the offering covers products from 19 insurers, which is not the entire market.

In a large share of cases, an experienced adviser can put together a more personalised offer – both in extra cover and in premium discounts. This is especially true when the adviser handles all of a client's policies together.

My clients can turn to me with confidence if they have a claim, and I help with reporting it. The assessment and adjudication of the claim is then carried out by a claims expert. I've gathered the fastest contact details on the Claims page.

You'll always need your policy number, so have it ready. Put together documentation of the damage (for example, photos of the marks left by a water leak). If something had to be replaced to fix the damage, keep the faulty item until the on-site inspection. If necessary (burglary, vandalism), notify the authorities and request a copy of their report.

A broker is not an insurer's agent, but acts on the client's instructions: I help clients choose among offers requested from the market, and I remain available to the client throughout the life of the policy – helping, where I can, at renewal, when making changes, and at claims time too. This activity is supervised by the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (the Hungarian National Bank); my registration number can be checked in the footer.

Your insurance policy and your relationship with the insurer stay in force regardless – the contract exists between you and the insurer, not with the broker. If Eurorisk Biztosítási Alkusz Kft.'s activity ended, or I myself stopped working, in practice another broker would take over the intermediary role, or contact would continue directly with the insurer – you would be officially informed of this. In the meantime, your contractual rights and obligations stay exactly the same.

No – working with me doesn't involve exclusivity or a lock-in: you can decide at any time to turn to another broker or go directly to the insurer. You don't need to give a reason, and I'm glad to help hand over the necessary data if you switch. The goal is always that you stay my client because it's worth it for you – not because leaving would be difficult.

My remuneration comes in the form of an intermediary commission, paid by the insurer for policies arranged and kept in force – it's a regulated, built-in part of insurers' premium calculations, so it typically doesn't add to what you pay for the insurance. It also means what matters isn't which insurer you pick, but which one suits you best.

Yes – broker work is based on a mandate: it starts with a short letter of engagement that sets out that I act in your interest. This is typically arranged simply, right after the first conversation. Without it, no substantive work – requesting offers, arranging cover – gets under way, so it's always clear who works for whom.

That's absolutely fine – my recommendation comes with its reasoning, but the final decision is yours in every case, even when it differs from my advice. I help with arranging whichever offer you choose, just as I would with any other. My only request is that we talk through the arguments together on any disputed points before you decide – after that, the choice is clearly yours.

The mandate doesn't come with an automatic, yearly renewal requirement – it runs for an indefinite period, until you decide otherwise. That doesn't mean it sits idle: if you let me know before the renewal date, I review your policies again, and you can end the mandate at any time. So the ongoing relationship isn't an obligation, but a service – for as long as you find it useful.

I'm always glad to hear it directly first – many misunderstandings can be cleared up in a single conversation. If that doesn't resolve things, you can also file a complaint with the Hungarian National Bank's (MNB) financial consumer protection procedure or with the Financial Arbitration Board (Pénzügyi Békéltető Testület), the supervisory and arbitration forums for intermediary activity. That's not me being defensive: my registration number and contact details are in the footer precisely so I stay checkable and reachable at all times.

Yes, and it's one of the most useful first steps: I review your existing policies free of charge – what's in order, and what's expensive, overlapping or missing. I only suggest a change where it's genuinely worth it.

Switching goes smoothly if you get in touch in time: we agree the cancellation deadlines, and I prepare and forward the forms – the signed cancellation is the policyholder's, and continuity of cover depends on the steps being reported. The goal is that you're never left without cover for a single day – and that your no-claims bonus stays intact.

Yes. Most of the process takes place by phone and email, and an in-person meeting only happens if that suits you. Distance doesn't affect the quality of the service.

Every insurance intermediary is listed in the public register of the Magyar Nemzeti Bank (MNB, Hungary's central bank and financial supervisor), which can be searched free of charge at intezmenykereso.mnb.hu and regiszter.mnb.hu. Enter my name or registration number 114063010758: the result shows the status (active), the type of activity and the broking firm on whose behalf I act. It is worth comparing this with the firm named on the mandate form – the two must match. You can do the same for any adviser, and under the Insurance Act (Bit.) the intermediary must tell you their name and the name of the principal firm before the contract is concluded, without being asked. Details: How can you check that your broker is really listed in the MNB register?.

Under Section 402 of the Insurance Act (Bit.), a broker is liable for loss caused by breaching professional rules – for example through wrong advice, incorrect information or the incorrect or late forwarding of a declaration – and is also liable for the persons acting on the broker's behalf. This liability is backed by compulsory professional indemnity insurance or financial security of at least EUR 1,564,610 per event under Section 403 of the Bit. It is not a broker error if the insurer does not pay under its own policy conditions, or if the information provided was incorrect on your side. If you suspect an error, raise it in writing: you must receive a reply to your complaint within 30 days; after that, you can turn to the Financial Arbitration Board (PBT) or the courts, while the MNB (Hungary's central bank and financial supervisor) examines compliance with the supervisory rules. Details: If your broker makes a mistake, who is liable? Broker liability and professional indemnity insurance.

Under the mandate – in line with Section 398 of the Insurance Act (Bit.) – I act on your behalf: I assess your needs, request and compare quotes, prepare the forms, forward the proposal or declaration you have signed to the insurer, and help where I can during the life of the policy. It does not entitle me to sign in your place, to cancel or switch your policy on my own initiative, to accept premiums or to provide legal representation. The mandate is for an indefinite period, but it can be withdrawn in writing at any time without giving reasons – your policies do not end as a result. Details: What does a broker mandate authorise – and what does it not?.

No broker sees all of them: the broker rules of the Insurance Act (Bit.) require an objective analysis of a sufficient number of insurance products available on the market, not of the whole market. I currently work with the offerings of 19 insurers, but the number differs by product line, because not every insurer provides quotes in every area, and some do not sell through brokers. On request, I tell you which insurers I approached and which did not provide a quote. If an insurer that is not available through me matters to you, you can request its quote directly, and it can also be included in the comparison. Details: Do you see quotes from every insurer? Who I work with, and why one may be missing.

A signed proposal is not yet a contract: the broker acts on your behalf, so the proposal counts for the insurer once it has arrived there – I forward it, and it is worth asking for confirmation of receipt. If you are a consumer, under Section 6:444 of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.) the contract comes into being even if the insurer does not respond within 15 days of receipt (60 days where a medical examination is needed), with retroactive effect to the time of handover. Cover runs from the start date indicated on the proposal, but only if the contract comes into being: if the insurer rejects the proposal within the deadline, there is no cover for the days in between either – for a consumer contract, however, after a loss occurring during the underwriting period the insurer may reject the proposal only if it expressly drew attention to this on the proposal form and the risk requires an individual assessment (Civil Code Section 6:444(3)). This is why it is advisable to cancel the old contract only after the new one has been confirmed. Details: You signed the proposal with your broker – from when are you covered?.

Not automatically: the broker acts on your behalf, not the insurer's, so the statement takes effect when it reaches the insurer. I forward any cancellation or notification sent to me without delay – but the deadline is decided by the date it reaches the insurer. For a cancellation at the renewal date, the notice must be with the insurer at least 30 days before the renewal date, so it is worth sending it, signed, at least 45 days in advance. The quickest way to report a claim is via the insurer's claims line or online claims form, and it is worth keeping the reference number of the report. Details: You sent a cancellation or claim notification to your broker – when does it reach the insurer?.

No. For a mortgage loan, the bank may require the property securing the loan to be insured, and it may specify the scope of cover, the minimum sum insured and the loan-security clause – but under Section 14/A(4) of the Fhtv. (the Consumer Credit Act) it must also accept another insurer's policy if that policy is at least equivalent in terms of the sum insured and the scope of cover. Ask for the bank's written requirements; we align the existing or the new policy with them and request from the insurer the clause, which you submit to the bank. If the bank offers a package discount on its own insurance, it is worth comparing the total cost; if the bank refuses, ask for written reasons. Details: Can the bank insist on its own insurance for your loan? The equivalent-cover rule.

It depends on the form. The Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.) requires written form for cancellation, and under Section 6:7(3) an electronic statement counts as written if its content can be retrieved and the identity of the person making it and the time can be identified – a simple, unsigned email does not necessarily meet this, and case law is not uniform either. Insurers set out in their conditions what they accept: typically a signed, scanned statement sent as an attachment, an identified client portal or an electronic signature – this varies from insurer to insurer. Send the signed statement from the email address recorded in the contract, ask for confirmation, and for a cancellation at the renewal date also send a registered letter with advice of delivery, so that you can prove it arrived at least 30 days in advance. Details: Is an email enough? When a cancellation, an amendment or a beneficiary designation is valid in writing.

You can give a mandate to more than one broker, but not for the same policy: in insurers' practice only one intermediary is recorded on a policy, and for the same risk you will not receive a different quote from the same insurer through two brokers – so approaching insurers in parallel does not bring more quotes, only confusion, and with corporate risks several insurers will quote only in response to the first request. Under the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), a broker mandate is a contract of mandate, which you may terminate under Section 6:278 of the Ptk. – any exclusion of the right to terminate is void, but for a long-term mandate the contract may stipulate a notice period or a temporary restriction on ordinary termination, so it is worth checking the termination clause of your own mandate; in practice, a change of broker works like this: the new broker sends your signed mandate to the insurer, the insurer transfers the policy to the new broker in its records, and you terminate the old mandate in writing. This also answers the other question: your policy cannot be 'taken over' without your knowledge, because the transfer requires your signature – if it has nevertheless happened, then either a statement was used that you did not sign, or a generally worded mandate you gave for another matter was interpreted more broadly than you thought. In that case, ask the insurer in writing to tell you whom it has on record as the intermediary on your policy and on the basis of what document; if you did not give the mandate, notify the insurer of this and revoke it in writing, and if a complaint lodged with the intermediary gets nowhere, you can challenge the intermediary's conduct with a consumer protection request to the MNB (Hungary's central bank and financial supervisor) – I help with this where I can. Meanwhile, your insurance remains in force unchanged: who the broker is does not affect the cover, the premium or the insurer's obligations.

Legally, yes: through a broker, too, the contract is concluded with the insurer, with the insurer's policy and the policy conditions issued by the insurer, and in the event of a claim it is the same insurer that pays – the broker is not a party to the contract but your agent, who prepares and forwards the proposal. In practice, however, the offering is not the same in every channel: insurers may sell different versions of a product in the online calculator, in their own network and in the broker channel – with different modules, limits or discount logic – so it can happen that the broker's quote and the online calculation do not relate to the same product version; this varies from insurer to insurer. I do not set the premium; it follows the insurer's tariff, and my commission is part of the premium and does not mean an extra cost for you – whether this makes the insurance more expensive is covered by a separate question on this page. What the broker route adds is not a different contract but the comparison: a quote table of several insurers arranged by the same criteria and an explanation of the policy conditions, and after the contract is concluded, if you have a question, I help where I can. If you already have an online calculation in hand, it is worth putting it next to the quote table: the same product version, the same sums insured and deductibles – that is what makes them comparable.

Legally, yes: under the broker rules of the Insurance Act (Bit.), a broker acts on behalf of the client, under the client's mandate, and a broker mandate can cover not only new contracts but also existing ones – this requires your signed mandate, which the insurer receives, after which the insurer records the broker as the intermediary on the contract (in the industry this is called a portfolio transfer or re-registration). Your contract does not change as a result: the insurer, the policy conditions, the premium and the policy stay the same; only a new party appears in the administration, who, acting on your mandate, can request information and amendment offers from the insurer and helps where they can. Not every contract can be transferred: insurers' practices differ as to whether contracts taken out through an online calculator or through their own network, or recently concluded contracts, are re-registered to a broker, and some allow this only at the renewal date – this is the insurer's decision, not the broker's. Your obligations also remain: paying the premium, reporting changes, signing and cancelling are still yours, and the broker cannot take these over. Under the mandate rules of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), you can terminate the mandate at any time – preferably in writing – and your insurance policies do not terminate either when you grant the mandate or when it ends.

Everything the broker learns about you and your contracts – the policies, the premiums, health or financial data – is an insurance secret under the Insurance Act (Bit.): the Act includes in this category all data relating to the personal circumstances, financial situation or insurance contracts of an insurance intermediary's client, and the intermediary's managers and employees, as well as everyone who gains access to the data in the course of the activity, are bound by confidentiality without any time limit. The data may reach those to whom the performance of the mandate requires it to go – the insurers from which the broker requests quotes on your behalf, the data processors named in the privacy notice, and the authorities on a statutory basis – while for other purposes, such as marketing, or to other recipients it may go only on the legal basis stated in the privacy notice, and for marketing messages typically only with your consent. The details of the data processing – the scope of the data processed, the legal basis, the recipients and the retention periods – are set out in the brokerage firm's privacy notice, which under the GDPR you must receive no later than when your data is collected, and which also explains how you can exercise your rights of access, rectification and erasure. The retention period is not the broker's decision: under the Insurance Act, data connected with the insurance relationship may be processed for as long as the relationship exists and as long as claims can be enforced on the basis of it, data relating to a contract that was never concluded for as long as claims can be enforced in connection with its failure, and under the Accounting Act accounting records must be kept for eight years. If you feel that your data has been misused, besides making a complaint to the brokerage firm, you can turn to the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (NAIH) or to a court.

Under Section 378 of the Insurance Act (Bit.), before the contract is concluded the intermediary must give you information about itself, on paper or another durable medium: its name, the supervisory register, whether it provides advice and on whose behalf it acts, and its complaints-handling procedure. Under the rules of the EU Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) as transposed into the Bit., before the contract is concluded your demands and needs must be identified on the basis of the information obtained from you (the needs assessment), and you must be given objective, understandable information about the product; if the intermediary gives advice, it must give you a personal recommendation explaining why the proposed product meets your needs, and for non-life insurance you are also entitled to a standardised insurance product information document (IPID). According to the Directive, an intermediary that bases its advice on a fair and personal analysis of the market must analyse a sufficiently large number of contracts available on the market – the law does not prescribe the form this takes (a table, a written summary), so it varies from broker to broker. The Directive also provides that, as a rule, you receive the information on paper or, with your consent, on another durable medium or via a website, free of charge. If you do not get one of these, ask for it in writing: it is not a favour but a compulsory step before the contract is concluded.

Yes, but only with a power of attorney that is formally in order: only the policyholder or their authorised representative can give the broker mandate and make declarations addressed to the insurer (cancellation, amendment, claim notification), and because of insurance secrecy the insurer gives even information about the contract only to the client (the policyholder, the insured person) or to a person they have authorised in writing. Under Section 6:15 of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), a power of attorney is a unilateral declaration that creates a right of representation, and it requires the same formalities as the declaration it allows to be made – in practice, insurers typically ask for a public document or a private document with full probative force (the principal's signature together with the names and addresses of two witnesses, countersignature by a lawyer, or authentication by a notary), containing the identification details of the principal and of the authorised representative, the policy number and a specific description of the matters covered; many insurers have their own form, and the accepted form varies from insurer to insurer. The authorised representative may also sign the broker mandate if the power of attorney covers this (or the relative's insurance matters in general), whereas insurers typically accept the designation or change of a beneficiary only on the basis of a power of attorney that expressly covers it. If the relative is under guardianship, the scope of the guardianship is decisive: a person whose legal capacity is partially restricted makes declarations in the category of matters concerned with the consent of their guardian, the guardian acts on behalf of an adult who lacks legal capacity, and some declarations may also require the approval of the guardianship authority; online client portals are tied to the policyholder's own identification, so an authorised representative typically cannot act there. If there is a formal defect, the insurer may reject the declaration, and a cancellation or claim notification may be treated as if it had never been made – so it is worth preparing the power of attorney in the form the insurer requires, and sending it to the insurer, before the first matter has to be dealt with.

Even for a contract concluded through a broker, the policyholder is the addressee of the insurer's correspondence: the insurer sends the policy, premium reminders, renewal and indexation notices and claim correspondence to the policyholder, at the postal or e-mail address it holds on record, while the broker typically receives a copy or a notification if the policyholder has authorised this in the broker mandate or with the insurer, and the insurer's system allows it – this varies from insurer to insurer, as does what appears on the client portal. With premium reminders, a lot is at stake: under Section 6:449 of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), if a premium due is not paid, the insurer sends the policyholder a written reminder warning of the consequences and setting a 30-day grace period; the deadline runs from the date the reminder is sent, and if it expires without result, the contract terminates retroactively to the due date; and – if a subsequent (not the first) premium was missed – the policyholder may request in writing, within 120 days of termination, that cover be reinstated. For compulsory motor third-party liability insurance (MTPL) the rule is different: under the MTPL Act (Gfbt.), the insurer sends a reminder in a verifiable way by the 30th day after the due date, the contract terminates on the 60th day after the due date and is not reinstated – a new contract has to be taken out. ‘The letter went to the broker’ or ‘I never received it’ is not an excuse in itself: the insurer sends its mail to the address registered with it, so reporting a change of home or e-mail address is the policyholder's responsibility, and the policy conditions typically treat a mailing sent to the address provided as delivered. The renewal notice is also sent by the insurer to the policyholder (for MTPL, under Section 17(4) of the MTPL Act, in a written notice sent no later than the 50th day before the last day of the insurance period); keeping track of it is the policyholder's job, and the broker does not take this over; in a claim, the insurer corresponds with the person who reported the claim and with the policyholder or the insured person. The opposite direction – when something you sent to the broker counts as having reached the insurer – is covered in the article ‘Sent a cancellation or a claim notification to the broker – when does it reach the insurer?’

The premium you saw in the calculator or the quote table is a calculation based on the data you provided, and the signed proposal is your offer to the insurer, not the insurer's offer to you: during underwriting (typically within 15 days, or within 60 days where a medical examination is involved) the insurer may accept it, reject it or – if the data differ from what was assumed, for example because of the claims history, the bonus-malus category, the type of construction or the state of health – propose modified terms, an additional premium or narrower cover. Accepting the modified proposal is your decision, but silence is not necessarily a rejection: under the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), if the insurer proposes amending a contract that came into existence without its express declaration, and you do not accept the proposal or do not respond to it within 15 days, the insurer may terminate the contract in writing with 30 days' notice; under some policy conditions, on the other hand, the modified offer creates a contract only with your express acceptance – the exact mechanism varies from insurer to insurer, so it is worth replying to the amendment letter in writing as soon as possible. If the content of the policy differs from the proposal, under Section 6:444 of the Ptk. you may object to the discrepancy without delay after receiving the policy, but within 15 days at the latest; otherwise the contract is concluded on the terms of the policy; for a material discrepancy this applies only if the insurer drew your attention to it in writing when issuing the policy; if it did not, the contract is concluded on the terms of the proposal. If the difference stems from a simple data error (a mistyped postcode, floor area, year of manufacture or date of birth), you need to have it corrected with the insurer in writing, because the premium and the cover are based on the recorded data, and incorrect data can also backfire when there is a claim. So a difference in premium is not in itself the broker's fault, nor yours: underwriting is the insurer's right and the decision is yours – if you do not accept the modified terms, the contract is not concluded, or the insurer terminates a contract that has already been concluded – and another quote can be requested.

No law requires a face-to-face meeting or paper: under Section 6:7(3) of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), a statement made electronically also counts as a statement in writing if its content can be retrieved unchanged and both the identity of the person making it and the time it was made can be identified – so for the broker mandate and the insurance proposal, what decides is not the technology but whether these three conditions are met and what the insurer accepts in practice. The strongest form is the qualified electronic signature, which under Article 25 of the eIDAS Regulation (910/2014/EU) has the same legal effect as a handwritten signature; according to the government offices' information notice, the eSignature (eAláírás) function of the DÁP app (the app of Hungary's Digital Citizenship Programme) offers electronic signatures to private individuals for private purposes – according to the notice, it cannot be used for a statement made on behalf of a company, for example as managing director – whereas AVDH authentication (the state's identification-based document authentication service), according to the same notice, was available from 1 January 2025 only within the ePapír service, and there only until 31 October 2025, and it has since been discontinued. An advanced electronic signature, a signature given on a tablet and a signed, scanned form returned by email are not equivalent to a handwritten signature by operation of law, but they are forms that can be assessed as evidence – under Article 25 of the eIDAS Regulation, an electronic signature cannot be denied legal effect and evidential value solely because it is in electronic form or is not qualified – and insurers and brokerage firms typically accept them for proposals and mandates; which ones they accept, however, varies from broker to broker and from insurer to insurer, as does the acceptance of a mandate given with a click on an identified client portal or in an online account. A simple, unsigned ‘OK’ by email is the weakest form, because the identity of the person making the statement and the time are harder to establish; so when you handle matters remotely, it is worth clarifying in advance which form the insurer in question accepts for the proposal, and keeping the signed document and the confirmation of receipt.

The order is as follows: first terminate the old mandate in writing, in the manner set out in the mandate agreement, and then (or at the same time, enclosing a copy of the termination) give a mandate to the new broker – because under the Code of Business Ethics of FBAMSZ (the Association of Independent Insurance Brokers in Hungary), a member firm of the association must find out whether the prospective client has given a mandate to someone else and whether an exclusivity agreement binds them under it; it may accept the mandate only if the client shows that the previous one has ended or will demonstrably end, and it must draw the client's attention to the consequences of an unlawful termination. The law does not prescribe a notice period: under Section 6:278 of the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), you may terminate the mandate at any time, and any exclusion of the right to terminate is null and void; for a long-term mandate, however, the contract may stipulate a notice period or a temporary restriction on ordinary termination – so the deadline and the form are set out in the termination clause of your own broker mandate. As a rule, the old broker can only ask you for money if you signed up to a fee or to reimbursement of costs in the mandate agreement, or if the termination disregards a notice period or restriction stipulated in the contract – because under Section 6:278 of the Ptk., if the principal (here, you) terminates, the agent (here, the broker) must be compensated for the loss caused by the termination, unless the termination was prompted by the agent's breach of contract – so it is worth reading this clause before you terminate. Your insurance policies remain in force unchanged during the switch: your home, MTPL (compulsory motor third-party liability), casco or life insurance is a contract with the insurer, which is not affected by the termination of the broker mandate; the only thing that changes is who acts on your behalf – the insurer typically re-registers the intermediary once the new mandate has been received, and until then premium payments, claim reports and renewal matters can be handled with the insurer in the same way, and if days go by between the two mandates, that means you are without a broker's help for that time, not without cover. If the old broker still appears as the intermediary on your contract after the termination, ask the insurer in writing to re-register the intermediary on the basis of the new mandate.

Because in life insurance the scope of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Act (Pmt.) also extends to independent insurance intermediaries – multiple agents (agents working for several insurers) and brokers – and the Act requires customer due diligence when a business relationship is established: under Section 7 of the Act, for a client who is a natural person, their name and birth name, citizenship, place and date of birth, mother's birth name, address, and the type and number of their identification document must be recorded on the basis of an official document suitable for proving identity (identity card, passport or card-format driving licence) and the address card, and the service provider makes copies of the documents (or checks the data against an authentic public register) – except for the back of the address card, which contains the personal identification number. The same Act requires the beneficial ownership declaration – from a private individual, a statement of whether they are acting in their own name or in the name or interest of another person who is the beneficial owner; from a company, a statement of who the natural person ultimately standing behind the organisation is – as well as the politically exposed person (PEP) declaration concerning the client, the beneficial owner and the beneficiary; the insurer records the beneficiary's name before the contract is concluded, and without the declarations the due diligence cannot be carried out, which under the Act is an obstacle to establishing the business relationship. Making a copy of your identity card is therefore not an overreach in data-protection terms but the fulfilment of a legal obligation, which under Article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a lawful basis in its own right, and the data must be processed for the purpose and for the retention period laid down in the Anti-Money Laundering Act – identification is typically carried out in person or by the electronic (video) method permitted by the Act, which varies from provider to provider. For home, MTPL (compulsory motor third-party liability), casco or other non-life insurance there is no such due diligence: there the broker asks for the data needed for the contract, but not for copies of documents under the Anti-Money Laundering Act.

Under the Condominium Act (Tht.), the common representative (közös képviselő) prepares and implements the resolutions of the general meeting within the framework of the law, the deed of foundation and the organisational and operational rules (SZMSZ), and it is the common representative who represents the community of owners – including before courts and other authorities – and under the Act any restriction of this power is ineffective against third parties: a broker mandate and insurance proposal signed by the common representative therefore typically bind the condominium externally, towards the broker and the insurer, even if the authorisation is disputed afterwards, while exceeding the internal authorisation is a matter between the community and the common representative, for which the representative may be held liable. Whether a separate general meeting resolution is needed to take out the insurance or to switch insurers depends on the deed of foundation and the organisational and operational rules: Section 28(1) of the Act does not mention insurance by name among the exclusive powers of the general meeting, but it is the general meeting that decides on taking on obligations that burden the community and on the annual budget – so in practice a new insurance contract involving premium payments for years, or a switch of insurer, requires authorisation from the general meeting or an approved budget allowance – and the SZMSZ often expressly sets out how far the common representative may conclude contracts independently; if it makes this subject to a resolution, the co-owners decide on the cover, the sum insured and the switch, and the representative implements their decision. Under Section 42 of the Act, any co-owner may challenge a general meeting resolution in court within sixty days of its adoption if it infringes the law, the deed of foundation or the SZMSZ, or substantially harms the legitimate interests of the minority; the action, however, does not prevent implementation – the court may suspend it only where justified – so an insurance contract concluded in the meantime does not end merely because the resolution has been challenged. For the mandate to be accepted, the right of representation must be proven – with the general meeting resolution or minutes electing the common representative (since 2025 the office of common representative must also be registered in the land register, on the condominium's master sheet, so it can also be checked on the property sheet), the relevant clause of the SZMSZ and, where the SZMSZ requires it, the resolution on the insurance – and disputes among the owners are forestalled if the switch of insurer goes before the general meeting together with the annual budget and the resolution also records the main elements of the cover.

No law makes it compulsory: credit protection (repayment protection) insurance is a product separate from the loan, which the bank may offer and to which it may link an interest-rate discount – for mortgage loans, Section 14/A of the Consumer Credit Act (Fhtv.) prohibits tying: the bank may make the loan conditional only on a payment account used for the repayments, savings linked to the loan, a savings-type life insurance policy or property insurance on the mortgaged property (and for these it must also accept at least equivalent insurance from another provider), so it cannot make risk-only credit protection insurance a condition of a mortgage loan; it may only offer it in a package, with a discount, if the loan can also be taken out without it; this prohibition does not apply to other consumer loans, and if the bank makes the insurance a condition of such a loan, under the THM rules it must also include the premium in the annual percentage rate of charge (THM, the Hungarian APR). Whether, for the interest-rate discount, the bank will accept – instead of its own group insurance – your separate life, accident or incapacity-for-work policy, with the benefit assigned to the bank or with the bank named as beneficiary, depends on the bank's published terms (hirdetmény) and conditions and varies from bank to bank, so it is worth asking about this in writing before signing the package. Recommendation 14/2025 of the MNB (Hungary's central bank and financial supervisor) on insurers' product oversight – which has a separate annex on credit protection insurance, must be applied from January 2026, and allows until early 2027 for the review of products already sold – expects insurers and the banks and financial enterprises involved in distribution, among other things, to keep the number and scope of exclusions reasonable and to monitor the proportion of rejected claims, and to state clearly, during the needs assessment and when providing information, the exclusions relevant to the client in question before the contract is concluded; as good practice it also records that the intermediary should draw the borrower's attention if their personal situation may justify additional risk insurance – and under the annex it is also good practice for the insurer to pay the outstanding debt or the instalment not to the client but to the lender. With a bank package, therefore, the details decide, and they are worth going through before you take out the loan: what the insurance pays for (death, disability, incapacity for work, unemployment) and how much (the monthly instalment for a set number of months, or the outstanding debt), which exclusions and waiting periods apply to you (a pre-existing illness, your age, and – if you are self-employed or retired – the fact that under the policy conditions the unemployment and incapacity-for-work elements often do not apply), who the beneficiary is (under bank group policies typically the bank, which means the family usually receives no payment beyond the debt), how the premium develops over the term, and what happens to the interest-rate discount if you later cancel the insurance or leave the group policy. If you let me know, I will help where I can.

No: the insurance premium goes to the insurer, not to me – under the Insurance Act (Bit.), a broker may accept premiums only on the basis of an authorisation from the insurer to that effect, which is why I neither ask for nor accept cash, and the premium is not to be paid into my account. The normal route for the premium is to the insurer's account: by bank transfer, direct debit, bank card or postal payment slip (csekk), to the account number given in the insurer's policy, premium request or premium notice – these documents are issued and sent by the insurer; at most, the broker forwards them. There is a narrow exception: on the basis of the insurer's authorisation, some brokers may accept the premium for certain products (typically travel insurance or a first premium) – the business rules of one large online broker, for example, state this explicitly – but in such cases the authorisation and the method of payment must be set out in the broker's written information and business rules. If an intermediary asks for cash, or asks you to transfer the premium to their own account rather than the insurer's, that is a warning sign: do not pay, ask for the insurer's premium request in writing, check the intermediary in the register of the MNB (Hungary's central bank and financial supervisor), and if you have suspicions you can also report it to the MNB's customer service – the risk of cash is covered in the article “Can I turn to the Conciliation Board about a broker? And why you should not hand over cash”, and when something that reaches me counts as having reached the insurer is covered in the article “You sent a cancellation notice or a claim notification to the broker – when does it reach the insurer?”. If you are not sure where to pay and how much, the insurer's customer service gives the authoritative answer; if you let me know, I help where I can.

Insurance cannot be taken out retrospectively for damage that has already occurred: under the Hungarian Civil Code (Ptk.), the insurer provides cover for insured events that occur after the start of cover (risk-bearing), and cover starts at the time specified in the policy conditions – often on the day after the proposal is signed or the first premium is received, or, where payment of the premium is deferred, when the contract is concluded – the contract does not apply to anything that happened before that, and when a claim is reported, the insurer may also check when the damage arose (on the basis of an expert inspection, photos, weather data and earlier claim reports). If the damage or the already damaged condition is concealed when the policy is taken out, that is a breach of the duty of disclosure: under Section 6:452 of the Civil Code, when the contract is concluded the policyholder must disclose every circumstance material to the insurer's acceptance of the risk that they knew or should have known about, and if this duty is breached the insurer's obligation to pay does not arise, unless the policyholder proves that the insurer knew of the concealed circumstance when the contract was concluded, or that the circumstance did not contribute to the occurrence of the insured event – and intentional deception may, beyond the consequences under insurance law, also lead to criminal consequences (fraud). A claims history is therefore no minor detail: insurers typically ask about previous claims on the proposal form; some policy conditions exclude damage already existing when the policy is taken out from the cover, or accept the risk for a damaged item of property only once proper repair has been certified, while other policy conditions classify a loss that recurs under the same circumstances as an earlier one as caused by gross negligence if loss-prevention measures were not taken despite a written warning from the authorities or the insurer – this varies from insurer to insurer, and the disclosure and exclusion clauses of your own policy conditions are what count. The broker acts on your behalf, but the duty of disclosure is yours and cannot be transferred: you sign the declaration; I do not take it over and do not “sort it out” for you; the Insurance Act (Bit.) expects professional diligence from a broker and makes the broker liable for its mistakes, so I cannot withhold from the insurer a material circumstance that has come to my knowledge, I do not prepare a proposal using false data, and I do not take part in deception – I have to turn down any such request. It is still worth taking out insurance after a loss – it covers new losses occurring after it is taken out, not the one that has already happened – and if you let me know, I help with this where I can; what the broker's mandate covers is described in the FAQ “What exactly does it mean to be a broker?”.