LAST week we paused on our series of claims settlement procedures to accommodate the Insurance Conference that took place in Livingstone from June 19 to 21, 2016.
Readers should look out in future articles where some topics from the conference will be tackled in detail.
Today we look at the claims procedure that involves theft of motor vehicles and/or its accessories.
A few months ago, a friend of mine parked his vehicle as usual at one of the flats in Ndola around 18:00 hours. In the morning, he got ready to go for work only to find his car was not there.
As he bewailed over this development it came to light that his vehicle was not the first one to be stolen at those premises, despite being a guarded place.
He heard of other neighbours’ cases whose vehicles were stolen within the same period.
Theft of motor vehicles is a crime that leaves the owner devastated.
You can imagine this vehicle owner having kids to drop at school, work or business to do using the vehicle.
Overnight all routine errands are disarrayed.
The situation is worsened if the vehicle is not insured comprehensively, not third party insurance which does not cover loss or damage to the insured vehicle.
The former covers among other things own damage and also theft of the vehicle.
What do you do when your vehicle is stolen?
Being a crime the first thing that should be done is to report this matter to the police followed by reporting it to the insurer.
Usually theft claims have a stringent reporting period of 48 hours depending on a particular insurer.
This allows insurers to consider options of possible recoveries based on their network and experience.
The insured will then be required to submit a preliminary police report, completed claim form, original copy of the registration certificate and all keys for the vehicle, inter alia.
It is important to note that all these documents must be original ones to remove any form of speculations.
Further, theft of a vehicle with keys in the ignition or keys/other device used to unlock the vehicle which has been removed from a safe and secure place is also not coverable.
There are a number of interesting cases from the United Kingdom’s ombudsman website to tickle the curious on
http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publications/ombudsman-news. In Zambia, under normal circumstances a period of six weeks is allowed for investigations by both the insurer and the police.
During this period the insurer and the insured collaborate with the sole aim of possible recovery.
If there are no recoveries, the insured will have to obtain a final police report and the claim will be settled cet.par.
Theft claims normally attract a higher excess of about twenty per cent as opposed to the standard 10 per cent.
In principle, once the insurer pays the claim the vehicle belongs to the insurer.
Therefore should it be recovered thereafter, the insured will have to surrender it to the insurer.
From my insurance practice, I must say there is a high recovery rate by the police. On this score thumbs up to the authorities.
Just last week a vehicle which was stolen and paid by a named insurer was recovered by the police and handed to the registered owner who subsequently handed it over to insurers.
There are times when the vehicle is recovered before the claim is paid by the insurer. In such circumstances if the vehicle is damaged then the insured should process a claim for repairs or replacement as the case may be.
In  my 12 years’ insurance experience I have heard of cases where some unscrupulous insureds engineer theft of motor vehicles.
Well this is a sad affair which insurers should be wary of and any person who instigates such an act should be ready to face the full consequences of criminality.
Insurers are smart people with vast experience to square off such perpetrators.
In case of theft of accessories a similar procedure is followed although settlement is usually quicker than theft of the entire vehicle.
Since we know not when a thief will strike, the safest approach is to comprehensively and adequately insure our vehicles.
Comments: webster@picz.co.zm or webster_tj@hotmail.com or on face book search for Insurance Talk-Zambia page or call/text 0977 857 055
(The author is a chartered insurer with 12 years industry experience)