THIRD PARTY RISK

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 30 July 1927, Page 11

THIRD PARTY RISK

WISDOM OF INSURANCE. Perhaps you may rightly class yourself amongst the most skilful drivers, and perhaps' you may be the most careful and conscientious pilot of a motoi car, nevertheless you should protect yourself with insurance, for no person can claim to be proof against accident, writes Major F. A. C. Forbes-Leith, F.R.G.S., author of ‘‘By Car to India.” A little child may run from behind a parked car directly into the path of your automobile and be killed. The damages may be enough to wipe out your . business, cost you your home, or dissipate your income for years. In some countries, a law is enforced making it compulsory for every owner to carry insurance against a bond guaranteeing the payment of judgments resulting from such injuries, or to deposit cash or securities with the Government. I feel sure that if such a law came into force every owner would elect to insure his car in preference to the two other options provided by this law. If it were not for the fact that a great number of motor cars are sold to-day on the easy payment system, and that the firms selling these cars insist upon insurance, a much smaller percentage of owners would trouble to take out a policy. It is a most regrettable tiling that, of recent years, there have been an ever-increasing number of accidents, where the driver lias run off rather than face the music. In most of these instances. 1 feel sure that their actions have been governed by fear of liability rather than by criminal intent. If you are insured, you will he clear of a deal of worry, both before and after an accident, and an insured driver will never prove to he a hit-and-run driver. If you have ail accident and are adequately protected, and you know that you are in a position to compensate those whom you have inadvertently injured, you will never have the temptation to run away. .Vo one has any business to jeopardise his interests and the interests of those dependent- upon him. when protection is at hand, can he bought for a reasonable sum. 1 have heard people lioast that they have dropped their insurance for the reason that thev have carried it for many years without occasion for •>a claim. Thev forget that, as one more of the vastly increasing number of motorists takes to the road, they have to face another potential unit of danger. and another thing, thev forget that, in spite of the fact that they liiii-v he careful enough not to hit anybodv, somebody may hit them and that somebody nmv neither ho insured nor in a position to pay compensation.