Five years after the 26/7 deluge, the consumer forum has ordered an insurance firm to pay compensation to an Andheri shop owner, who suffered major losses in the floods. The forum said the insurance firm repudiated the claim with “a mala fide intention and merely on a technical ground”. The insurance company will now pay the policy holder Rs 1.92 lakh together with an interest of 9% from March 2006 till the realisation of the entire amount and Rs 5,000 towards costs.
The policy holder, Nishat Enterprises, is a partnership firm that owns GKB Eyecare, an optical shop in Andheri (W). In the complaint filed by one of the partners, Ali Hussain Khan, the firm said it had taken an insurance policy from Oriental Insurance Company in respect of goods and property at the shop premises, valid from December 2004 to December 2005. On July 26, 2005, flood water entered the shop and all furniture and optical stock were totally destroyed.
The insurance company was intimated about the loss. When a surveyor visited the shop, the complainant said that the policy had wrongly mentioned the shop number as 18 when it was actually 10. However, the insurance company rejected the claim, saying that as per the survey report, the policy was taken for shop number 18, whereas the complainant’s shop was 10. Khan then filed a complaint with the Mumbai Suburban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum.
In their defence, the insurance company contested that the alleged loss occurred at shop 10, whereas shop 18 was insured, and it was not liable for any loss occurred at shop number 10. The forum presided by J L Deshpande and members D S Bidnurkar and V G Joshi said that the firm had requested the insurance company to make the correction. The forum observed that there were only 12 shops and there was no shop 18.
The insurance firm also argued that the policy was taken for commercial purpose and so, the firm is not a consumer within the meaning of the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act. The consumer said it had wrongly applied to the provisions of the Consumer Protection Act. “The firm had not taken the insurance policy to acquire and sell it…it was not the subject of its commercial activity or business.”
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Insurance-co-told-to-pay-for-26/7-loss/articleshow/6267705.cms