Supreme Court Decides that Insurers Must Pay Out on Genuine Claims
This may seem a strange statement to be making, however an insurance company took a case all the way to the Supreme Court arguing that they should be entitled to refuse to pay out on a genuine claim.
The case itself related to a cargo ship whereby the engine room flooded. The crew lied about the cause of the flood but importantly the actual cause of the flood was something that the insurance covered.
Supreme Court made a logical decision
But the Insurers tried to say that even though they had insured against this particular risk that had indeed happened, because an (irrelevant) lie had been told during the claims process, the entire insurance claim was therefore void. Thankfully the Supreme Court made what is ultimately an entirely straightforward and logical decision – if the claim is genuine then the Insurers must pay out, i.e. if the incident was something that the Insurers had agreed to insure (and let’s not forget receive an insurance premium to cover) then the Insurers must pay out.
Car accident claims
Although the case itself related to a Dutch cargo ship, the decision applies to all insurance claims, in particular car accident claims – which remain the subject of an aggressive campaign by the Insurance Industry.
The Association of British Insurers
The Association of British Insurers provided a response to the Supreme Court Decision, by way of saying that they will study the Judgment very carefully – but at the same time made it clear that they would still consider alleging fraud by way of a response to genuine claims in the future.
Bearing in mind this suggestion by the Insurance Industry as to continuing to try and resist genuine claims, now more than ever an injured person should seek advice from an independent and specialist Solicitor who they themselves have freely chosen.
Richard Clegg is a Specialist Personal Injury Solicitor at GMS Law.
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