INSURANCE CLAIM

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19062, 26 July 1927, Page 10

INSURANCE CLAIM

TEST CASE RESULT.

RESERVED JUDGMENT.

Judgment in the civil claim, wilier was taken as a test case, in which Lane, Walker, and Itudkin, Ltd., claimed from the Yorkshire Insurance Company the sum of £69 3s Id, being balance of refund in respect to policies taken out with the defendant company and afterwards cancelled, pursuant to a clause in the policies, was given by his Honour Mr Justice Sun in the Supreme Court yesterday morning The point in argument was a clausa in the policy stating "the insurance may be terminated at any time at the request of the insured, in which case the company will retain the customary short-period rate for the time that the policy has been in force. The insurance may also, at any time, be terminated at the option of the company on notice to that effect being given to the insured, in which case that company will be liable to repay on demand a rateable proportion of the premium for the unexpired term from the date of cancellation." In his judgment, his Honour said the question in dispute was whether the defendant was entitled to retain the larger sum. The answer to that question depended on what was meant bv the expression "the customary shcrt-period rate" as used in the policies. "In the absence of any indication of a contrary intention,- it ought to be constructed, L think, as meaning the rate which has been adopted by the Association and was in force at the date when the insurances were terminated," continued his Honour. It was not suggested that there was anything in the policies which made the short-period rates in force when the insurances were effected part of the contracts, or gives the assured any right against the company to have these rates maintained unaltered. In the absence of any such right, the assured would have to take the rates as he found th»m when ho elected to terminate the insurance. If before the termination of the insurance, the rates were altered, then the altered rates became the customary rates for the pui-pose of the policies. "That, in my opinion, is the proper interpretation of tho expression, and that, it is admitted, is the interpretation on which insurance companies have acted in the past, 1 ' concluded his Honour. Judgment was given for. the defendant with costs, his Honour stating that the plaintiff was not entitled to recover any further sum. from the defendant. Mr A. T. Donnelly appeared for the plaintiff and Mr C. "S. Thomas for the defendant.