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Grave difficulty in trying to enforce exclusions and warranties

Many insurers, especially of the aviation extraction, face possible loss of defences against dodgy claims by being unable to comply with the SA laws relating to timeous issue of policies.

If the insured hasn't had a policy, the insurer will have grave difficulty in trying to enforce exclusions and warranties. SA law is very explicit - a policy has to be issued within 30 days of the commencement of the risk.

In aviation, a new policy is issued every year but some insurers still try to rely on the fact that their insured got a policy last year and they haven't changed the clauses so they think they can rely on this even though they have made no effort at all to issue the current policy. It's a new contract.

I am sure that many attorneys will little difficulty in squashing that one.

One insurer, when challenged over outstanding policies is known to have said "We'll issue it when the claim comes."

With that sort of attitude they will get scant sympathy in the courts or the Ombudsman's offices.

There shouldn't be a problem at all - an aviation policy is a pretty standard document which has a number of clauses added to it depending in the risk.

Any half-way competent computer nerd could put together a programme that would enable a policy to be issued in 10 minutes flat.

I've tried it and it is dead easy.