

Learn how foreign-owned companies can challenge underpaid commercial property insurance claims in Turkey in 2026, including low valuations, underinsurance disputes, depreciation, salvage deductions, expert reports, business interruption losses, insurance arbitration and court proceedings.
Foreign-owned companies in Turkey can challenge an insurance payment when the insurer pays substantially less than the actual insured commercial property loss. Foreign shareholding does not reduce a company’s rights under a valid Turkish insurance policy. The decisive issues are the policy wording, insured values, nature of the loss, expert calculations and whether the insurer has correctly applied deductibles, depreciation, underinsurance, exclusions and other policy provisions.
Commercial property losses can involve factories, warehouses, hotels, offices, shopping facilities, logistics centers, manufacturing plants, machinery, inventory and other business assets. After a major fire, flood, explosion or similar insured event, the difference between the company’s actual loss and the insurer’s proposed settlement can reach millions.
An insured company should therefore avoid treating the insurer’s initial expert calculation as automatically final. Turkish insurance law allows disputes concerning the amount of compensation to be challenged through documented objections, insurance arbitration where available and judicial proceedings.
Yes.
A foreign-owned business generally has the same contractual rights under its insurance policy as another insured commercial entity.
A company can challenge a valuation where the insurer has allegedly:
The appropriate strategy depends on how the insurer calculated the payment.
An underpaid claim arises when the insurer accepts that a covered loss occurred but pays less than the amount the insured believes is legally due.
For example, a factory may suffer a substantial fire and calculate its covered physical loss at TRY 30 million, while the insurer proposes only TRY 17 million.
The difference may result from several separate adjustments rather than one simple disagreement.
The insurer may argue that:
Each adjustment should be reviewed independently.
Not necessarily.
Insurance companies commonly appoint loss adjusters or technical experts after a commercial property loss.
Their report may be highly influential in the claim process, but it should not automatically be treated as legally binding on the insured company.
A foreign-owned company can obtain independent evidence and challenge:
For high-value claims, obtaining an independent engineering or insurance-loss assessment can significantly strengthen the dispute.
The company should seek a clear breakdown explaining how the final payment was calculated.
This may include:
A settlement figure without a transparent calculation is difficult to evaluate properly.
Machinery disputes are common after major industrial losses.
The insurer may value damaged machinery using:
These approaches can produce dramatically different results.
The company should preserve:
Accounting book value should not automatically be assumed to equal the insurance value or actual insured loss.
Potentially, depending on the insurance contract and valuation basis.
The company should determine whether the policy provides coverage based on concepts such as:
An insurer should not simply impose an arbitrary depreciation percentage without connecting it to the policy and the relevant insured property.
For machinery in particular, age alone may not accurately represent remaining economic value.
Yes.
The insured can challenge depreciation by presenting evidence concerning:
An insurer’s standard percentage calculation can be disputed where it produces an unrealistic result.
Underinsurance exists where the insurance amount is lower than the value of the insured interest.
This can significantly reduce commercial property compensation.
Under the Turkish Commercial Code, where the insured amount is less than the insurance value at the time the risk materializes and only part of the insured property is damaged, compensation may be reduced proportionally unless the parties have agreed otherwise.
For rapidly growing foreign-owned businesses, underinsurance can arise because machinery, inventory or rebuilding costs increased while policy limits remained unchanged.
A simplified example illustrates the risk.
Assume:
If proportional underinsurance applies, the insurer may argue that only 50% of the loss is payable because the property was insured for only half of its value.
That could reduce the TRY 10 million loss to TRY 5 million before other policy deductions.
However, the insured should first verify whether:
Yes.
The dispute may actually concern the denominator rather than the physical damage itself.
For example, the insurer might calculate the pre-loss value of the factory at TRY 100 million, while the company’s experts calculate it at TRY 70 million.
That difference substantially changes the alleged underinsurance ratio.
The insured should therefore obtain evidence supporting the correct pre-loss insurance value.
This can be extremely important.
Some commercial insurance contracts may contain special clauses limiting or waiving proportional underinsurance consequences where specified conditions are satisfied.
The full policy must therefore be examined, including:
A company should not accept a proportional reduction before confirming that no protective endorsement applies.
Potentially, yes.
Damaged machinery, stock or materials may retain residual economic value.
However, salvage deductions frequently become disputed because the insurer’s estimated value may be much higher than what the damaged property can realistically produce in the market.
A foreign-owned company can obtain:
If the insurer deducts TRY 5 million as salvage but the business can obtain only TRY 1 million in genuine market offers, that discrepancy should be challenged.
Usually not without adequate documentation and coordination.
The insurer may later dispute:
Before disposal, the company should generally ensure that sufficient photographs, expert inspections and written records exist.
Where urgent disposal is necessary for safety, contamination or operational reasons, the reasons should be thoroughly documented.
Inventory disputes can be especially complex.
The insurer may examine:
The company should reconstruct the inventory position immediately before the loss using evidence such as:
Where physical records were destroyed, electronic accounting and supplier records can become crucial.
Yes.
A fire or flood may make a complete post-loss physical count impossible.
Historical accounting data can therefore be used to reconstruct stock.
The company may compare:
Opening inventory
That calculation should then be reconciled with surviving stock and salvage.
It depends on the policy valuation basis.
For imported machinery in particular, current replacement costs may be far higher than historical purchase prices because of:
A policy based on replacement or reinstatement value may therefore produce a different result from a policy based on actual value.
The wording should be reviewed before accepting the insurer’s valuation method.
Yes.
The insurer may obtain a low repair quotation from one contractor, while the insured company may argue that the proposed repair:
Independent engineering evidence can be essential where replacement versus repair is disputed.
The manufacturer’s technical position can be highly persuasive.
The company should request a written report addressing:
A generic adjuster conclusion should not automatically override detailed manufacturer evidence.
VAT treatment depends on the claimant’s circumstances and whether the relevant tax is recoverable by the business.
If VAT can be deducted or recovered through the company’s tax system, the insurer may argue that it does not represent a final economic loss.
If the business cannot recover the VAT, a different analysis may apply.
This issue should be coordinated with the company’s accounting records and policy wording.
Business interruption is often the largest disputed component after a serious commercial property loss.
Where appropriate business interruption coverage exists, the company may claim qualifying losses resulting from the interruption or reduction of operations caused by the insured physical damage.
Typical issues include:
A company should not calculate business interruption merely by multiplying daily sales by the number of days the facility was closed.
Business interruption disputes usually require forensic accounting.
The company may need to demonstrate what financial performance probably would have occurred if the insured event had not happened.
Relevant evidence may include:
The insurer may argue that the company would have experienced lower sales even without the insured event.
A properly prepared loss model should address such arguments.
Potentially, where they fall within the policy.
Examples can include:
The business should document how these expenses reduced or avoided a larger insured interruption loss.
Yes, where the policy contains a valid deductible.
However, disputes may arise about whether the insurer applied the deductible correctly.
Questions can include:
The actual wording controls the calculation.
The company should verify whether the policy treats the event as:
This can significantly affect deductibles and policy limits.
Yes.
A policy may have a large overall sum insured while specific categories remain subject to much smaller sublimits.
Examples can include:
Companies should distinguish between true underpayment and a genuine contractual sublimit.
Potentially.
A single commercial event can contain both covered and uncovered components.
For example, the physical fire damage may be covered while certain contamination or consequential losses are excluded.
The insurer should identify the precise policy provision supporting each deduction.
A general statement that “part of the loss is excluded” should be examined against the actual policy wording.
Receiving a partial payment does not necessarily mean the insured has accepted it as full settlement.
However, extreme caution is required where the insurer asks the company to sign:
The wording should be reviewed before signature.
A document signed to obtain urgent liquidity could later be relied upon by the insurer to argue that the remaining claim was waived.
Potentially.
It may be possible to receive an undisputed amount while expressly reserving the right to pursue the remaining claim.
The reservation should be clearly documented.
Companies should avoid vague communications that could later be characterized as acceptance of a final settlement.
Under Article 1427 of the Turkish Commercial Code, the insurer’s compensation obligation becomes due once its investigation into the claim has been completed and subject to the statutory payment framework. The same provisions also regulate situations in which the insurer’s investigation continues for an extended period.
For substantial commercial losses, companies should document when the insurer was notified and when all material claim documents were delivered.
Potentially, yes.
Where insurance compensation has become due but remains unpaid, default-interest consequences can arise.
A company claiming TRY 20 million of additional compensation should therefore consider not only the unpaid principal but also whether interest has accrued.
The relevant starting date depends on the circumstances and the point at which the insurer’s payment obligation became due.
A commercial insurance objection should be precise and evidence-based.
It should normally contain:
The company should avoid sending only a brief message stating that the insurer’s offer is too low.
Yes.
For example:
Insurer’s gross loss: TRY 30 million
Underinsurance deduction: TRY 6 million
Depreciation: TRY 3 million
Salvage: TRY 2 million
Deductible: TRY 1 million
Payment: TRY 18 million
If the company believes the correct payment is TRY 27 million, it should explain precisely which deductions are disputed and why.
This approach makes later arbitration or litigation much stronger.
Not legally necessary in every claim, but often valuable in large commercial disputes.
Independent experts can address:
Large claims may require several different disciplines rather than one general expert.
Potentially.
Turkey has a specialized insurance arbitration mechanism under the Insurance Law. Whether a particular dispute can proceed through this mechanism depends on the applicable statutory and institutional conditions, including the insurer’s status and the nature of the dispute.
For claims submitted from 16 July 2026, the Insurance Arbitration Commission’s current application fee tariff provides that disputes above TRY 85,000 are subject to an application fee equal to 1.8% of the disputed amount, with a minimum fee of TRY 1,750.
Commercial claimants should therefore calculate procedural costs before choosing the forum.
The Insurance Arbitration Commission announced updated monetary thresholds for 2026.
From 22 January 2026:
A regulatory amendment published on 19 March 2026 also changed how the relevant monetary thresholds are determined, generally linking objection and appeal eligibility to the thresholds applicable on the application date.
These procedural details can matter significantly in multimillion-value commercial property claims.
No.
The appropriate forum depends on factors such as:
A straightforward valuation dispute may be well suited to arbitration.
A highly complex industrial loss involving multiple coverage issues, allegations of misrepresentation, several expert disciplines and large consequential losses may justify a different strategy.
Yes.
Where the insurer refuses to pay the full amount and the dispute cannot be resolved, the insured company may pursue the remaining contractual insurance compensation through the competent judicial process.
Potential claims can include:
Procedural prerequisites applicable to the particular commercial dispute should be considered before filing.
Yes, and this can be particularly important where damaged property will soon be demolished, repaired or removed.
A company may need to preserve evidence concerning:
Once a factory has been fully repaired, reconstructing the original damage can become far more difficult.
Not necessarily.
Businesses normally need to minimize losses and restore operations.
The key is to preserve sufficient evidence before irreversible repairs are completed.
This can include:
The company should coordinate major changes to the loss site carefully.
Large insurance shortfalls can create immediate liquidity problems.
The company may need funds for:
In such circumstances, the company should separate the undisputed amount from the disputed portion and consider whether payment of the undisputed amount can be obtained without waiving the remainder.
The insurer can reasonably request documents necessary to investigate the claim, but requests should be relevant to determining coverage and the amount of compensation.
The Turkish Commercial Code requires the insurer to bear reasonable expenses incurred to determine the scope of the risk and amount of indemnity.
Repeated requests for documents that are irrelevant or already supplied may become significant where the insurer is accused of delaying settlement.
Very important.
Email correspondence, formal notices and claim submissions may later establish:
Important claim communications should therefore be documented rather than handled exclusively through telephone conversations.
That issue may create a separate dispute.
Where a company suffers a major underinsurance reduction, it may examine whether an intermediary or professional responsible for arranging insurance:
The existence of a possible claim against another party does not eliminate the need to analyze the insurer’s own calculation.
Yes, particularly where the parent company handles risk management or group insurance.
However, the identity of the actual insured must remain clear.
A foreign parent company’s financial loss as shareholder is not automatically identical to the Turkish subsidiary’s insured property loss.
The insurance claim should be made by the entity or party entitled under the policy.
Multinational groups may have:
In such cases, the Turkish insurer’s payment may not represent the entire group insurance recovery.
Both local and master policies should be reviewed together to determine whether an additional claim can be made internationally.
High-value commercial property claims frequently involve:
The company should identify which of these actually caused the shortfall.
Before signing a final settlement, the company should perform a complete reconciliation.
It should determine:
Actual documented loss
minus legitimate policy deductions
minus previous payments
equals remaining compensation due.
This exercise should cover every insured category, not merely the principal building loss.
A settlement should not be accepted merely because the payment appears large in absolute terms.
A TRY 25 million offer can still be a substantial underpayment if the covered loss is TRY 45 million.
A strong challenge usually follows five stages.
First, reconstruct the loss independently. Establish the true building, machinery, inventory and business interruption losses using technical and financial evidence.
Second, audit the insurer’s calculation. Identify every deduction, including depreciation, underinsurance, deductibles, salvage and exclusions.
Third, review the policy wording. Determine whether the insurer’s calculation is actually supported by the policy, endorsements and applicable statutory rules.
Fourth, submit a documented claim for the difference. The objection should quantify the amount still due and explain every disputed adjustment.
Fifth, escalate where necessary. Depending on the case, the company may pursue insurance arbitration or judicial remedies rather than accepting an inadequate settlement.
For foreign-owned businesses, nationality is rarely the central issue. The strongest claims are built through accurate valuation, technical evidence, accounting records and careful policy interpretation.
Yes. Foreign ownership does not prevent the insured company from disputing the amount of compensation payable under its commercial property policy.
No. The insured may challenge the report using independent engineering, valuation, accounting and other evidence.
Yes, where the insurance amount is lower than the insurance value and the statutory or contractual proportional underinsurance rules apply.
Yes. The company can dispute the insurer’s pre-loss property valuation, asset classification, calculation methodology and application of any policy waiver or special endorsement.
Yes. Evidence concerning condition, maintenance, remaining useful life, market value and replacement cost may support a higher valuation.
Potentially, but the company should ensure that it does not sign a document waiving the remaining claim. Any reservation of rights should be clearly documented.
Yes. Disputes concerning lost turnover, gross profit, increased operating expenses, saved costs and the indemnity period can all be challenged where business interruption coverage applies.
Potentially, subject to the statutory and institutional requirements governing the particular insurer and claim. The Commission’s 2026 procedural thresholds and fees should be checked before filing.
From 22 January 2026, the Insurance Arbitration Commission states that awards concerning disputes of TRY 35,000 or more may be subject to the objection procedure, while the Court of Cassation threshold is above TRY 383,000.
The complete policy, insurer’s calculation, loss-adjuster report, independent expert evidence, repair and replacement quotations, asset registers, inventory records, accounting documents and business interruption calculations are particularly important.
An underpaid commercial property insurance claim can leave a business unable to rebuild, replace machinery or restart operations even though substantial insurance premiums were paid for years.
The critical issue is often not whether the insurer has paid something, but whether it has paid the correct amount.
Fırat Fesih Kaya Law Office assists foreign-owned companies, international investors, manufacturers, warehouses, hotels, logistics companies and other commercial policyholders with substantial insurance underpayment disputes in Turkey.
Lawyer Fırat Fesih Kaya provides legal assistance concerning commercial property insurance underpayments, fire and flood losses, machinery valuation, stock damage, underinsurance, excessive depreciation, salvage deductions, business interruption claims, expert report objections, settlement negotiations, insurance arbitration and litigation against insurers.
Phone: +90 312 434 22 22
Mobile: +90 532 769 22 22
Email: info@firatfesihkaya.av.tr
Address: Mevlana Boulevard No:221, Yıldırım Tower, Office No:148, 06520 Balgat, Çankaya, Ankara, Turkey