8 months ago
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‘Seven Years of Agony for Crash Victim’ screamed the banner of this newspaper’s Tuesday, March 19, afternoon imprint, The STAR. Even though it competed for my attention with headlines about Mr Lexx (who is he?) and an ailing cop who was headed for cancer treatment in Mexico, the main reason for my purchase decision – the first in decades – was to learn more about the experiences of the crash victim.
Interactions between crash victims and the motor vehicles insurance compensation system has long been one of my areas of interest – see, for example, ‘The Tragedy of Jamaica’s Motor Insurance Compensation System,’ The Sunday Gleaner, January 14, 2024. I wanted to know more about people’s encounters with the system. Were there lessons to be learned?
According to The STAR, Simone Morgan, who was 37 years old at the time, narrowly escaped death after riding as a pillion passenger on a friend’s motorcycle. She was travelling from Port Royal to Kingston. Her friend died after the motorcycle was hit by a motorist.
Simone is the mother of six children. She has been scarred for life and is still suffering from pains and is struggling to pay for physiotherapy and medication.
Her attorney found out that the at-fault third-party motor vehicle insurance has a $5 million limit for personal injuries. Simone was advised to reject the insurer’s $5 million settlement offer and pursue a claim directly against the negligent driver.
Seven years later, Simone, in the words of Jimmy Cliff, is still sitting in limbo and “hoping for the process of compensation to be expedited.”
Minister of Finance and the Public Service Dr Nigel Clarke announced during his recent contribution to the 2024-25 Budget Debate that the country’s social safety net will be expanded to include unemployment insurance. Social safety nets, according to The World Bank, are programmes that protect families from the impact of economic shocks, like natural disasters, and other crises. These programmes include “cash, in-kind transfers, social pensions, public works, and school-feeding programmes targeted at poor and vulnerable households … data shows that these plans lower inequality and reduce the poverty gap by about 45 per cent.”
Unemployment insurance payments or benefits are intended to provide temporary financial assistance to unemployed workers who are without work through no fault of their own. Dr Clarke did not offer any details on how the proposed scheme will operate. The administrator of the scheme, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, is expected to set out later the eligibility requirements, scale of benefits, the length of time over which benefits will be paid, and how benefits will be paid.
The motor insurance compensation system is operated by private-sector companies, which are supervised by a government regulator, the Financial Services Commission. Motor insurance providers operate within a legal framework – The Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act, the Insurance Act, 2001 and Regulations, and The Financial Services Commission Act. Government can remove the dysfunctions in the system and improve the outcomes for scores of citizens like Simone.
Improvements can be made by increasing the limits under Sections 5(2) (a) and (b) and (3)(a) and (b) of The Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act and by establishing minimum guaranteed service standards like those the Office of Utilities Regulation has imposed on the Jamaica Public Service Company, the National Water Commission, and other utility providers. These changes would go a far way to remove some of the suffering of hundreds of crash victims across Jamaica like Simone.
One unintended consequence of the decision by government bureaucrats not to collect data on the number of persons who are injured in motor vehicle crashes is that there are thousands of accident victims who are suffering in silence outside the reach of the motor insurance compensation system that was designed to help them.
A safety net, according to the AI that is embedded in my Internet browser, is a net placed below people performing at great heights, such as acrobats, to catch them if they fall. It limits the distance of their fall and deflects to dissipate the impact energy, reducing the risk of injury. While unemployment insurance benefits are often called part of a country’s social safety net, payments made to the victims of motor vehicle accidents who are maimed, for some reason, do not fit that classification.
Architects and builders of the proposed unemployment insurance compensation system should therefore not emulate the procedures and processes of the dysfunctional motor insurance system. As the experiences of Simone shows, the existing system is not designed to limit the distance of the victims’ fall or dissipate the impact energy but to accentuate the injuries.
Cedric E. Stephens provides independent information and advice about the management of risks and insurance. For free information or counsel, write to: aegis@flowja.com or business@gleanerjm.com
English (US) ·