Court of Cassation: A mediation application can count as the application to the insurer under Article 97 of the Highway Traffic Law

Court of Cassation (Yargıtay), 4th Civil Chamber, Docket 2026/3130, Decision 2026/4439, 20 April 2026

Article 97 of the Highway Traffic Law (Karayolları Trafik Kanunu, KTK) requires a person injured in a traffic accident to make a written application to the compulsory motor liability insurer before filing a lawsuit or applying to arbitration against it. In this decision, the 4th Civil Chamber of the Court of Cassation accepted that a mediation process conducted with the insurer can satisfy this application requirement.

The dispute

The claimant was injured in a traffic accident on 25 June 2023 involving the vehicle they were driving, and applied to the Insurance Arbitration Commission against the vehicle’s compulsory motor liability insurer for compensation for permanent incapacity.

The Arbitral Tribunal dismissed the application on procedural grounds for lack of a procedural requirement, reasoning that no disability report had been submitted with the application to the insurer. The claimant’s objection was also rejected by the Appeal Arbitral Tribunal. On appeal, the claimant’s counsel argued that the disability report had been submitted to the insurer during the mediation sessions.

What did the Court of Cassation hold?

The Court referred to Article 97: the injured party must make a written application to the insurer before going to court within the policy limits. If the insurer does not reply in writing within 15 days of the application, or if its reply does not satisfy the claim, the injured party may file a lawsuit or apply to arbitration under the Insurance Law No. 5684.

In the case at hand, there was a mediation non-settlement report dated 7 February 2024 between the parties. According to the Court, this could be accepted as an application to the insurer. The claimant had therefore fulfilled the mandatory application requirement under Article 97, which is a special procedural requirement.

Accordingly, the Court held that the tribunal should have ruled on the merits instead of dismissing the application on procedural grounds, and unanimously reversed the Appeal Arbitral Tribunal’s decision.

Why does the decision matter?

• In traffic accident compensation cases, whether an application was made to the insurer, and which documents were submitted with it, is a frequent ground for procedural dismissal in practice.
• The decision shows that a mediation process with the insurer that ended in a non-settlement report may be treated as fulfilling the application requirement under Article 97.
• It thus reflects an approach favourable to injured parties by preventing dismissals on purely formal grounds without examining the merits.

Practical points

• The decision concerns a single case; each case must be assessed on its own facts.
• The safest course is to make a written application to the insurer, with the necessary documents including the disability report, before filing a lawsuit or applying to arbitration, and to keep provable records of the application.
• If mediation is pursued, care should be taken that documents submitted to the insurer during the sessions are reflected in the minutes or correspondence.
• It is important not to miss the time limits for objecting to or appealing a procedural dismissal.

Full text of the decision (PDF, in Turkish) ↗

The official text can also be found on the Court of Cassation decision search using the case details above.