[lg policy] India: Public Interest Writ petition wants insurance firms to use regional language on policies

[Harold Schiffman]

PIL wants insurance firms to use regional language on policies
TNN | Oct 24, 2011, 01.29AM IST


CHENNAI: A writ petition, filed in the Madras high court for a
direction to insurance companies to print terms and conditions of
insurance policies in vernacular languages and to print them legibly,
is to be now treated as a public interest writ petition. An order to
this effect was passed by justice T S Sivagnanam, before whom the
petition filed by R Ayyanar came up for hearing recently.

V S Suresh, counsel for Ayyanar, submitted that as the terms and
conditions were printed only in English or Hindi, customers who do not
have knowledge of either of these languages are led to believe
whatever the agents promise. Though Section 146 of the Motor Vehicles
Act, 1988, mandates that insurance companies issue policies in a
readable manner and the terms and conditions are to be understood by
the policyholders, no company is making an earnest effort to print
them in legible, bigger font sizes, he said.

He said printing the policy forms only in Hindi and English would
amount to discrimination as well adding that companies do not print
their local addresses in the forms though such a small step would help
the policyholder to contact the nearest insurance office immediately
after an incident.

Justice Sivagnanam, noting that any direction issued on the matter
would have a bearing on all insurance companies, said the matter
required to be treated as a PIL and heard by a division bench. He then
referred the matter to be placed before the chief justice for
appropriate orders.

As the terms and conditions are printed only in English and Hindi,
customers who do not have knowledge of either of these languages are
led to believe whatever agents promise, says the plea.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/PIL-wants-insurance-firms-to-use-regional-language-on-policies/articleshow/10468007.cms

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list