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By Denis Wanyonyi
An insurance company, APA Insurance Limited has been ordered by Justice Alfred Mabeya to pay a sum of KShs 82 million together with interest amounting to over KShs81 million as damages to the director of Britind Industries Ltd, a company that manufactures packaging and paper materials such as serviettes and toilet tissues.
In a case filed in 2016 by their lawyer John Ogada in the High Court, Britind Industries claimed that APA insurance had refused to settle its claim after a fire burned down the industry and destroyed their building, machinery and raw materials and causing extensive losses to the company.
The company had insured the business with APA insurance and had fully paid for the policy.
Lawyer John Ogada stated in the plaint that after the fire had razed down his client’s factory, the insurance company sent an investigator, one George Ndegwa who demanded bribes from Mr Santosh Kumar Singh, a director of Britind Indusries Ltd, and when the investigator was rebuffed, he paid some of the company’s employees to support an allegation that Mr Singh had started the fire.
The employees exposed him in court.
The insurance company, who was represented by senior counsel Zehrabanu Janmohamed in their defence maintained that Mr Singh had burned his factory and further argued that the company had not disclosed to her client that the building his company was a tenant and not the owner of the building where he was conducting the business.
However, Mr Ogada in his submissions said that before providing the insurance cover, APA had itself done a valuation which according to the valuation report included the building, all the machinery and products of the company and his client had paid the required premium.
In his judgment Justice Alfred Mabeya noted that even though even though the allegations of bribery against the investigator George Ndegwa had been reported to them even before they declined to settle the claim, the insurance company’s witnesses agreed that they neither investigated the complaint nor did they take any action.
The court found that independent witnesses exonerated Mr Singh from possible involvement in starting the fire. The judge further found that the Plaintiff had proved its case to the required standard and therefore merited the amount which it claimed together with interests at court rates from the date of filing the suit until payment in full.
