Insurance company to pay Rs 5L for CSPHCL employee’s death

Chhattisgarh State Consumer Dispute Redressal Commission has ordered the Oriental Insurance Company Limited to pay Rs 5 lakh to the Chhattisgarh State Power Holding Company Limited (CSPHCL) as it has obtained group accidental insurance policy for its employees.

Chhattisgarh State Power Holding Company Limited complained that it obtained a group personal accident insurance policy for the period between September 11, 2008 to Sep 9, 2009 to cover the accidental death of its employees and in case of death, the sum assured payable was Rs 5 lakh.

The complaint says that deceased T Samuel was working with the aforesaid company (CSPHCL) as a conductor and died after coming under a train on duty while distributing electricity supply bills. Police was immediately informed about the incident and postmortem was also conducted and then claim was preferred before the Insurance Company. The insurance company repudiated the case on the ground that deceased himself was guilty of committing crime, and he came over the track on which train was coming and therefore, the terms of the insurance policy had been violated, so it was not liable to pay any amount under the insurance policy.

District forum said that it did not find evidence on record to show that at the time of incident the deceased was committing any breach of law and said that the incident was purely an accident and directed to the insurance company to pay the amount of Rs 5 lakh to the nominee of policy holder. The court also ordered that insurance company will be liable to pay penalty of Rs 100 per day from January 17, 2009 and further to Rs 0,000 as compensation for mental agony. Respondent insurance company challenged the order of district forum in State commission which has now modified the amount of interest rate and directed to pay the sum assured of Rs 5 lakh with 6 per cent interest on the sum assured from the date one month after lodging of the claim. The commission also ordered to pay Rs 10,000 for mental agony of the complainant.