Indian Kanoon - Search engine for Indian Law

CS SCJ No. 98/2018 Smardeep Kaur vs M/s IFFCO TOKIO page 15 of 24 "10. We have perused the insurance policy issued by the petitioner-company to the complainant. The said policy while covering damage due to flood, cyclone, hailstorm, etc., does not exclude the loss to the vehicle due to hydro static lock. In the absence of such an exclusion, the insurance company will have to reimburse cost of repair of the vehicle on account of damage by heavy rains and flooding irrespective of whether the said loss occurred due to hydro static lock or for some other reason. If despite IRDA permitting charging of an extra premium for reimbursement in respect of loss due to hydro static lock the petitioner-company did not charge such a premium, it is only itself to blame for such a situation because the policy issued by it while granting insurance against damage due to flooding, etc., did not exclude the loss/damage to the vehicle on account of the aforesaid reason. Therefore, in our opinion, in a damage of this nature, unless expressly excluded, in the insurance policy, damage to the vehicle on account of hydro static lock would also be covered for the purpose of reimbursement. For this reason alone the petitioner-company must necessarily fail.

11. Even otherwise we find that there is no evidence of damages, which the surveyor excluded for the purpose of reimbursement, having been caused on account of hydro static lock. Neither the surveyor has stated so in his report nor has the insurance company filed any opinion/report from an automobile engineer or from the workshop where the vehicle was repaired to prove that the damage which it was not ready to pay had occurred on account of hydro static lock. This is yet another reason for which the insurance company has to fail."