Section 887: Liability insurance, definition and direct action
Statutory text (Thai original)
อันว่าประกันภัยค้ำจุนนั้น คือสัญญาประกันภัยซึ่งผู้รับประกันภัยตกลงว่าจะใช้ค่าสินไหมทดแทนในนามของผู้เอาประกันภัย เพื่อความวินาศภัยอันเกิดขึ้นแก่บุคคลอีกคนหนึ่ง และซึ่งผู้เอาประกันภัยจะต้องรับผิดชอบ บุคคลผู้ต้องเสียหายชอบที่จะได้รับค่าสินไหมทดแทนตามที่ตนควรจะได้นั้นจากผู้รับประกันภัยโดยตรง แต่ค่าสินไหมทดแทนเช่นว่านี้หาอาจจะคิดเกินไปกว่าจำนวนอันผู้รับประกันภัยจะพึงต้องใช้ตามสัญญานั้นได้ไม่ ในคดีระหว่างบุคคลผู้ต้องเสียหายกับผู้รับประกันภัยนั้น ท่านให้ผู้ต้องเสียหายเรียกตัวผู้เอาประกันภัยเข้ามาในคดีด้วย อนึ่ง ผู้รับประกันภัยนั้นแม้จะได้ส่งค่าสินไหมทดแทนให้แก่ผู้เอาประกันภัยแล้ว ก็ยังหาหลุดพ้นจากความรับผิดต่อบุคคลผู้ต้องเสียหายนั้นไม่ เว้นแต่ตนจะพิสูจน์ได้ว่าสินไหมทดแทนนั้นผู้เอาประกันภัยได้ใช้ให้แก่ผู้ต้องเสียหายแล้ว
Verbatim from the Royal Gazette / Office of the Council of State
English translation
Liability insurance is a contract of insurance by which the insurer agrees to pay compensation, in the name of the insured, for a loss suffered by another person for which the insured is liable.
The injured person is entitled to receive the compensation due to him directly from the insurer, but that compensation may not exceed the amount the insurer is bound to pay under the contract.
In an action between the injured person and the insurer, the injured person must join the insured in the action.
The insurer is not released from liability to the injured person merely by having paid the compensation to the insured, unless the insurer proves that the insured has paid it to the injured person.
ThaiLawOnline translation, written from the Thai original and verified
Firm annotation
Section 887 is part of Book 3 (Specific Contracts) of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code. This entry is awaiting firm-authored commentary; the statutory text above is verbatim from the Office of the Council of State (OCS Krisdika) Thai source. The English translation is ThaiLawOnline's own, written from the Thai original and verified against it. Always rely on the Thai original for legal proceedings.
Why this matters in practice
For lawyers: the injured third party has a direct statutory claim against the insurer; this right cannot be defeated by the insured's insolvency. The insurer's liability is capped at the policy limit. For laypersons: if someone injures you with their car, you can sue their motor insurer directly — you do not have to sue only the driver.
Legislative history
Part of the original Civil and Commercial Code codification; no major subsequent amendment.
Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section
-
Supreme Court Judgment No. 1928/2550 (2007)
The third party's direct right of action against a liability insurer under Section 887 is capped at the insurer's contractual liability to the insured.
Under Section 887 paragraph 1, the injured person has a direct right of action against the liability insurer, but the amount recoverable cannot exceed the insurer's contractual liability to the insured under the policy.
-
Supreme Court Judgment No. 1802/2549 (2006)
Liability insurance is a sub-type of non-life insurance; the two-year prescription under Section 882 applies to the injured party's direct claim against the insurer.
Liability insurance under Section 887 is a species of non-life insurance (Book 3, Title 2, Part 3) and the two-year prescription under Section 882 (paragraph 1 read with the non-life insurance provisions) applies to actions by the injured person against the liability insurer.
Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.
Cited in 106 Supreme Court decisions (1968 to 2025)
Selected citing decisions
- Decision 4904/2565 (2022)
- Decision 5310/2562 (2019)
- Decision 6288/2559 (2016)
- Decision 9481/2558 (2015)
- Decision 9209/2558 (2015)
- Decision 8820/2558 (2015)
- Decision 4888/2558 (2015)
- Decision 9532/2557 (2014)
This list is selected automatically, weighted towards judgments that turn on this section rather than ones that merely recite it when passing sentence. It has not yet been reviewed by the firm.
Most often cited alongside
- Section 448 16
- Section 882 16
- Section 425 8
- Thai CPC s. 172 8
- Thai CPC s. 249 8
- Section 880 5
Sections that appear in the same judgments as this one most often. The figure is the number of decisions.
Counted across the firm's corpus of 83,652 Supreme Court decisions, 1921 to 2026. The count is complete; the stated year range trims rare outliers so it describes where the citations actually sit. These figures are computed by us and are not official court statistics. How we count these, and what we measured
Related guides on ThaiLawOnline
Cite this section
-
Plain citation
Civil and Commercial Code, s. 887 (Thailand) -
Academic citation
Civil and Commercial Code (Thailand), s. 887. ThaiLawOnline, https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-887/ (accessed 8 August 2026). -
Thai citation
ป.พ.พ. มาตรา 887 -
Permalink
https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-887/ -
Embed on your site
<blockquote cite="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-887/"><p>Liability insurance is a contract of insurance by which the insurer agrees to pay compensation, in the name of the insured, for a loss suffered by another person for which the insured is liable. The injured person is entitled to receive the compensation due to…</p><footer>Civil and Commercial Code, s. 887 (Thailand) — <a href="https://www.thailawonline.com/thai-civil-code/section-887/">ThaiLawOnline</a></footer></blockquote>
The Thai text is authoritative. The English is an unofficial translation by ThaiLawOnline, free to reuse with attribution.