Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)

Mangalore, Jul 22: People normally insure their vehicles against accidents, fire, theft etc., and most policies also contain third party insurance. Strangely, none of the normal policies issued by companies cover the people whom you take in your private vehicle, like family members, friends or hitch-hikers. In case of accidents, owners of vehicles are faced with the burden of reimbursing the entire cost of hospitalization and other expenditure in case a person who travels in their vehicles suffers injuries due to accidents.

In a far-reaching verdict delivered in the United India Insurance Comapny v/s Bhagyalakshmi and others, Karnataka High court judges Justice B Padmaraj and justice S Abdul Nazir had delivered a judgement clarifying the above points, in the year 2007. This verdict makes it clear that persons other than the owner who travels in a private vehicle are not considered as third parties. They need to be insured separately by citing them as 'anonymous passengers'. Most insurance companies do not take care to educate the concerned while issuing policies in this regard. Even if this insurance cover is obtained, the companies cover only death or disability of the anonymous passengers and not hospitalization expenses. So, even those who travel with us free of cost, reserve the right to sue us for recovering the hospitalization expenditure even your policy covers anonymous passengers.

This verdict is totally opposed to the earlier position where the other people travelling in a private vehicle were considered as third parties. As the vehicles accident tribunals are relying on this verdict in settling such cases of late, the vehicle owners need to be very careful while allowing others to travel with them.