I think the Personal Liability insurance that almost everyone has in Germany is an overlooked societal lubricant. For €10 a month, you get €10 million in coverage for accidental damage.
* No incentive for revenge law suits.
* Damages are well regulated so you can't sue for €1 million just because someone's bicycle ran over your toe.
* Can't sue for exorbitant medical expenses because in most cases there are no personal medical expenses i.e. covered anyway by govt health insurance.
I'm unsure if personal liability insurance is popular elsewhere in Europe.
From what I have heard from someone working at an insurance company, those liability contracts are not cost covering. They have those for customer recruitment.
> Damages are well regulated so you can't sue for €1 million just because someone's bicycle ran over your toe.
Counter-example: a website uses Google Fonts and the owner gets a letter from someone's German lawyer demanding they pay "damages" for the GDPR "violation"
You notice that the Spiegel article talks about criminal behavior by a lawyer (and the individual sums are tiny, not even clear they would have taken this to court as German courts take upfront fees).
* No incentive for revenge law suits.
* Damages are well regulated so you can't sue for €1 million just because someone's bicycle ran over your toe.
* Can't sue for exorbitant medical expenses because in most cases there are no personal medical expenses i.e. covered anyway by govt health insurance.
I'm unsure if personal liability insurance is popular elsewhere in Europe.