MOTOR INSURANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 15 August 1930, Page 2

MOTOR INSURANCE

A SUCCESSFUL CLAIM. WELLINGTON, August 12. Judgment for the plaintiff for the full amount claimed v'as given by Mr Ei Page, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court to-day in the case in which Kenneth Joseph Wilson, bank clerk, claimed from the Mercantile and General Insurance Co., Ltd., £3O 7s 3d, being the amount of damages done to his motorcar through a collision. Plaintiff owned a motor-car, and on July 3rd, .1929, took out an insurance policy with the'defendant company for £l5O. and paid the premiums up to •July 3rd, 1930. In November, 1929, he arranged to sell the car on timepayments, and an agreement for sale and purchase was entered into between him and.the purchaser, and possession of the car was given to the purchaser. In March, 1930, while the car was being driven by a friend of the purchaser it,collided with another vehicle, and damage amounting to £3O 7s 3d was done to it. The insurance policy contained among its “general exceptions” a provision that no liability shall attach to the company “if the Tiiterest of the assured in the said motor-veh-icle has passed' to any other person,” and the question was whether the plaintiff’s interest' in the car could be said to have passed to the purchaser. “It is argued by the defendant company that the effect of the agreement is that the property (of ownership of) the car has parsed to the purchaser, and that the policy is therefore void,” said Mr Page. He was unable, to adopt that view, as the agreement expressly provided that the property was not to pass until the whole of the purchase money had been made. Security for appeal was fixed at the amount of the claim, plus £7 7s.