Expensive Protection

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 558, 10 January 1929, Page 6

Expensive Protection

COMPULSORY CAR INSURANCE Premium on Careless Driving A STUDY of the compulsory third-party motor insurance Act passed in the rush hours of the last session of the old Parliament indicates a lack of necessary forethought. It makes provisions that are so open to abuse that the reader of the Act is almost inclined to think that there should be a table included showing the proportion of damages thai should be awarded to witnesses who. in the witness box, give the best performances for the claimant’s side.

QNE anticipation is that whatever the Government valuation of injury and loss of life may be, there will be a decided rise in the price within the next couple of years. As was explained in a previous article, when motorists renew their car licences next year, they will be compelled to subscribe to a compul-sory-insurance scheme under a recent Act. The insurance will be to compensate third parties for physical injuries, or their dependents for death. The insurance companies may please themselves about accepting the risk, but if they do not the income will go

third-partv risk to £I,OOO. Afterwards they lifted this limit to a sum which, to all intents and purposes, made the liability of the companv unlimited. The most obvious result was that the claims jumped over £I,OOO and juries often have awarded more than that sum. It has long been a recognised custom that if a car was involved in an accident the fact of its being insured was not mentioned or admitted. The wisdom of this was only too palpable, for the lay mind immediately conjures up thoughts of an El Dorado at the very mention of an insurance company being behind the scenes. When it is common knowledge that every car is insured, how jolly it will be for the claimant, more especially the semi-professional claimant who has a good pleader before a jury. Imagine this court scene: Foreman of jury about to retire: The jury would like to know the name of the insurance company interested in the claim. His Honour: I think it is the Jinx Company. Foreman, addressing his colleagues after retiring: This office treated me very shabbily last week. Another Member: Yes, and they pay rotten wages. A friend of mine has been there for years getting £2 a week, and when she asked for a rise was turned down. Foreman, on returning to the court: The jury awards the full amount claimed, and costs. This may be exaggerated, but the human interest story will enter into the business as never before. Under any system of compulsory and wholesale insurance there still remains the danger that claims for damages will increase in number and amount, and that, knowing the owner is protected by insurance to an unlimited amount, sympathetic juries will award compensation either too liberally or where It is not rightly due. Under present conditions there are points on which an insurance company requires to be satisfied, mainly about the character of the insurer and the condition of his car. These are safeguards the sweeping away of which will tend to increase accidents. The fact that, whatever happens, he comes out best, is bound to have its effect on the driver of a certain class, and morally he will be little concerned. In fact it appears to be very open to question whether this extensive provision for compensating any and everyone who may be injured, in order to satisfy a portion, and only a portion, of those who may not be able to secure damages from those who injure them, is going to have any beneficial result. Everything considered, the likely results are far from pleasant, especially from the point of view of the already heavily-taxed motorist.

yrr to the State Office. The car will be covered, no matter who the driver, be he drunk, a joy-rider who has taken the car, or anyone at all. The Act has created a number of expectations, all of them with heavy financial obligations, which will fall on the motorist. Among these expectations are: An increasing disregard for personal injury to others, proved in the United States; An increase in the awards made by juries; and The creation of professional claimants and witnesses, both already evi dent in other countries, even with out the compulsory insurance. Prior to the entry of the mutual associations into the New Zealand field of car insurance the companies and the State policies limited the