EUROPEAN Union (EU) courts should not ‘disproportionately’ reduce insurance payouts to passengers involved in car accidents when they are partly or wholly responsible for a crash, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled.

Setting an EU precedent in a Finnish case, judges said that under European law, the fact a passenger might also be the owner of the vehicle involved was ‘irrelevant’ when assessing policy payments. The court partly opposed the recommendation of an ECJ advocate general, who stressed the rights of insurers to reduce compensation in such cases.