Legal victory for Toti motorist vs insurer

A Toti motorist has won an initial battle against his insurance company which refuted his claim after he wrote off his vehicle two years ago.

The company denied his claim after it said Sherwin Jerrier had failed to disclosed two previous accidents, which he did not claim for.

In 2013 a Pietermaritzburg High Court judge ruled that Outsurance was correct in not paying out more than R600,000 after Jerrier damaged his Audi R8 in 2010.

However on Tuesday, 7 July, three appeal judges ruled that Outsurance will now have to cough up not only the damages to his car, but also his legal costs.

The court case has been keenly followed by the motoring public and insurance industry to see if the end result would affect how claims are dealt with and whether all minor accidents which a customer decides not claim for to protect their ‘no claims bonus’, now had to be the norm.

“I was a bit relieved at the outcome, that after the amount of work, justice has been done,” said Jerrier. “It took a while and I was not happy with the initial ruling.

It took a lot of effort and money to appeal. Many people have spoken to me about similar experiences and they found themselves out of pocket when their insurance company refused to pay out, so this ruling is a good thing for consumers. I believed I was right, so the first ruling was a bit upsetting and it wasn’t something I took lightly.”

Jerrier struck a pothole in 2008 and had been involved in an accident with a bakkie the fol­lowing year. He had not claimed for either, but he told the claims handler of both incidents after he put in his R600,000 claim for the third incident in 2010.

He testified that he did not claim for the first two incidents because he believed the claims would be less than his R20,000 excess and he would lose his bonus.

Jerrier’s insurance company first alleged he was under the influence of alcohol at the time of his accident. He said that when they could not prove that, they moved to the non-disclosure issue.

“For a layman to take the legal route against these huge insurance companies is not easy. I now hope a council wil be set up to take up these sort of claims. Consumers must consider the fine print of their contracts, because they are lengthy and vague.

It’s great that the outcome of this case will give people hope.”