Chandigarh 14 February (Wishav Warta Harmel Singh) Punjab & Haryana High court former judge and President of Punjab state consumer dispute redressal commission Justice Paramjit Singh Dhaliwal has come heavily on insurance companies for befouling innocent consumers. While deciding a case of The New India Assurance Co. Ltd., Justice Dhaliwal has used strong words to show mirror to the insurance companies.
Justice Dhaliwal while dismissing appeals of above mentioned insurance company has said, it needs to be noticed that Insurance Companies spend Crores of rupees on advertisement to earn the trust of insured but make every endeavor to deny claims, delay payments, confuse consumers with incomprehensible insurance speak and retroactively refuse/deny claims. The insurance contracts are most dense and incomprehensible contracts. It is said that insurers generally attempt to convince the customers when selling policies that everything is covered and when the matter comes to Courts/Tribunals/Foras, they try to convince that nothing is covered. In this manner insured are victims of murky words and structure of insurance policies. It can be said that the terms and conditions are written in hieroglyphics. These are nearly impossible to decipher and loaded with one indiscernible clause after another. The language used is opaque to pay claims. The insured victims are victimized by the Insurance Companies while declining insurance claims. So appears to have been happened in the present case.
While awarding interest as compensation for causing financial loss and depriving the complainant of the use of the said amount with effect from the date of filing of the complaint till the date of actual payment, Justice Dhaliwal has said that it is case of an arbitrary repudiation of claim and the complainant had to litigate before various Foras for the same for the last about 7 years.
