An increasing number of motor vehicle accident insurance claims are being rejected and disputed on the strength of a clause in insurance policies, namely the reasonable precautions clause, the Ombudsman for Short-Term Insurance has announced.
Mazwi said there were various reasons why an insurer may invoke this clause, but it was mainly relied on in cases where the insurer alleges that the insured was driving above the regulated speed. The question then is whether insurers may reject a claim because the insured was speeding? The expert in that case did not consider objective evidence at the accident scene and there were substantial inconsistencies in the measurements that he had used to calculate the speed. Data from the on-board computer and the vehicle tracking reports indicating the speed that the vehicle was travelling when the accident occurred are generally accepted.
The insurer must put forward a convincing argument on which to conclude that the driver foresaw the possibility of an accident and deliberately courted the danger by taking measures which the driver knew were inadequate. Alternatively, the driver simply did not care that the measures were inadequate and therefore recklessly reconciled himself/herself with the danger. It is unlikely that a driver will admit recklessness.