Insurance Tips

Back to Tips Index | 2 Court Cases and Some Terrible Statistics

 

In 2002, there were 18,242 road accidents with 37,387 people injured. Among those were 455 fatal accidents in which 524 people were killed. (A personal note – all of us have experienced the "crazy" driver – overtaking on the solid white line on Kvish Haminharot or on the blind rises coming up from Bet Shemesh – perhaps the time has come to publicly publicize the car numbers and names of those who threaten us and our families – let’s stop this madness!)

Court Case #1
This case was decided by the president of Israel’s Supreme Court, Judge Aharon Barak.
The facts: A person who drives without a valid license is not covered by his/her Bituach Chova. However, what happens where the license has a qualification. e.g. a young driver who must be accompanied by an experienced driver; driving with power steering; wearing glasses or contact lenses.

The case: Tsvi G. is an 80% invalid. His license states that he can only drive a car with power steering. Tsvi drove a car without power steering and was involved in an accident where both he and a third party were injured.

Justice Barak made the point that there is a difference between conditions of the license that are marginal e.g. non-payment, and conditions that are primary e.g. an invalid suffering from a muscular disease, who must drive with power steering. He found that while each contravention of the license should be judged on its own, in this particular case, Tsvi G. had broken a primary condition and was thus not entitled to any payment.

 

Court Case #2
We have all been through it! You buy a car and install the necessary protections. The following year, the insurance company asks you to install an immobilizer, the following year a secret code, the following year - a guard-dog!

Michael Dahan went through this – he had an alarm, an Ituran tracking system plus an immobilizer – all were installed and checked by the insurance company’s installers. And yet, one dark night, his valuable jeep was stolen – alarms and all. When the insurance company checked the claim, they found that the Ituran had not been working. On this basis, they rejected the claim, referring to what is written in most policies, that the alarm has to be there and has to be working.


Mr. Dahan in turn went to court where the judge found in his favor stating:

  • Dahan had no way of knowing that at the time of the theft his alarm system
    was not working – nor was he expected to know this.
  • The very fact that a person buys insurance despite the fact that he has
    multiple alarm systems shows that the insurance company’s take into
    account a scenario whereby a theft could occur even though we are
    "alarmed to the teeth".

Moral: Win some, lose some!