Action Against Municipality for Failing to Repair Potholes Dismissed

Justice Leach has conducted a thorough review of the standard of care for a municipality as it relates to potholes in the decision of McLeod v. General Motors of Canada, 2014 ONSC 134 (S.C.J.).  In McLeod, the action against a rural municipality was dismissed.

Ms. McLeod was injured on September 18, 2004 on a rural gravel road in Dutton-Dunwich.  She lived on the road and had been coming home from a nearby social gathering on the night of the accident.  The plaintiff alleged she was surprised by the headlights of an oncoming vehicle, and lost control of her vehicle due to potholes on the road.  The plaintiff called lay witnesses who felt the potholes never improved and were always present.  A number of witnesses alleged they complained to the municipality and wanted the road to be paved.

Justice Leach held that the road was not in a state of disrepair.  Gravel roads are inherently dynamic.  The presence of loose stone near the edges of the road would not be unusual, dangerous or unreasonable in the circumstances.  There were eight potholes with diameters of 6"-12", none of which was deeper than 2".  The condition of the road was reasonable in the circumstances, having regard to the rural nature of the township, the number of similar roads within the municipality's jurisdiction, the municipality's limited resources, the road's low traffic volume, and the obvious nature of the road's surface, alignment and elevations.

Even if he had held the road was in a state of disrepair, Justice Leach would have held the municipality was entitled to rely on the statutory defences set out in s. 44(3) of the Municipal Act.  Firstly, the municipality had no knowledge of a defect.  Although complaints were allegedly made, they were informal (such as in coffee shops) and vague or general.  Secondly, the municipality took reasonable steps to prevent the default from arising as it had a regular system of grading.  Thirdly, the municipality met the Minimum Maintenance Standards for inspection and pothole repair.

Although it is a lengthy decision, McLeod is a worthwhile read for those defending municipal claims. 

 

NICL AO Interview pattern in last one week

18 march 2014

NICL AO Interviews are on full swing across various cities in India. After a small break of Holi in north India the process gets continued on Tuesday. In last one week thousands of candidates have been interviewed across India with the aim of finding the best among the lot. While the normal operating offices of NICL have been unaffected by the process, the Regional Offices Personnel Departments are fully mobilized exclusively for it. They are strictly instructed to keep an eye on the process in their regions. The Official of the Personnel Departments are instructed to make their presence in person throughout the day and are ordered to reach the interview venues one hour before the scheduled time for the candidates. Even the document verification work is to be done by the officers not the below the rank of AO.

As far as pattern for the interview is concerned, it is in line with what we have advised to our friends wherein we had suggested AO-generalists candidates to concentrate more on the GK and personal information aspects rather than the technical ones. For generalist candidates the focus is more on your personal achievements for last 2-3 years and previous work experience. Apart from that good amount of GK questions are also being asked with the present relevance. Chaining Questions like who is Anna Hazare, with which bill he is linked, what is Jan Lokpal bill are being asked. Similarly candidates were asked about in which state recently emergency was imposed, under which article the emergency can be imposed, who is Kejriwal, what is the name of the party which he has formed. Candidates with marketing backgrounds were asked to sell things similarly Pharma graduates were asked to advice the medicines for ailment with different symptoms. Candidates going for AO(IT) specialists were mainly asked the question related with their domain like defining and explaining WAN, LAN etc.

One of the most important development seen in this year’s interview process is inclusion of at least one female senior official in the interview panel to make sure that the female candidates feel more comfortable in facing interview. Another important trend of the interview is that the candidates are not given much time to think the answer and questions are bombarded on them like rapid fire round to see their quick decision making capacity. Hence all our friends are requested to be prepared in advance for some of the common question like introduction and reason for Gap after qualification. Soon we will upload the most frequent questions asked in this years interview.

Insurance Bharat wishes Best of Luck to all the candidates for their selection. Please note that Insurance Bharat is a small attempt to help our friends aspiring for administrative Officer Position in the GIC companies and is not linked with any organisation. Insurance Bharat is not a profit making body and it doesn’t ask for any kind of financial assistance from any individual/organisation. Students in their own interest are requested to contact the NICL office directly to get any clarification regarding NICL AO-2014 process.

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For any insurance related technical question....click here
For any general query on NICL Interview....click here

CBI starts probing ICICI Lombard

 Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has started inquiry against insurance company ICICI Lombard for allegedly issuing government financed insurance policies to non-eligible people in Rajasthan...Read More

Requests to Admit Can Be Reviewed on an Interlocutory Basis

Can the validity of responses to a Request to Admit be reviewed on an interlocutory basis?  Yes, according to a recent motion decision.

In Glover v. Gorski, 2013 ONSC 6578 (S.C.J.), the minor plaintiff was struck by a Waste Management truck while crossing a highway.  The defendants served a Request to Admit prior to disclosure and discoveries.  The plaintiffs made a global refusal, "to admit the truth of the facts...on the basis that the truth or falsity of the facts alleged is not entirely clear, calls for a conclusion to be determined by the trier of fact or the statement(s) alleged is vague".  The defendants brought a motion to compel the plaintiff to provide answers.  One issue was whether a motions judge could make an Order or whether the matter must be left to a trial judge.

Justice Gauthier held that a Request to Admit can be reviewed on an interlocutory basis.  She held that the plaintiffs' blanket refusal and reasons offered for the refusal were not responsive, and ordered they deliver a Response within 20 days.

A Request to Admit is most often served prior to trial to narrow down issues, but Glover shows that it can also be useful at earlier stages of the litigation to narrow issues.

First Day experience of interview for NICL AO 2014

NICL has started the interviews to select the Administrative Officers for the four General Insurance Companies on Monday in New Delhi. The venue for the interview was at Hans Hotel, Barakhamba, Connaught Place. Candidates hardly have the problem to reach the venue as the venue is well connected with bus as well as metro. The nearest metro station is Barakhamba Metro Station. NICL has made the arrangements to conduct the interviews smoothly and has deployed the officers from its Delhi Regional Office to oversee the process. There were some of the students who have queries regarding how many copies of the certificates are to be brought and others were willing to know whether NOC is requires at the time of interview on not. 

The reaction of the candidates were mixed, Engineering candidates were happy for the fact that not much core technical questions were asked from them for example electronic engineers were not asked to draw the low band filters or transformers equivalent circuit; similarly computer Science engineers were also not asked to write the C++ codings etc. However questions like ‘which article deals with emergency in constitution’ or ‘who was the PM and President at the time of emergency’ has left the candidates puzzled. Questions regarding the reason for joining the insurance sector was asked to most of the candidates. Not much was asked from the core insurance sector.

The demography of the candidates was more than expected as the candidates from varied fields were called for the interview ranging from Engineers, Arts graduate, Science graduates and  Paramedical fields as well. Most of the candidates attending the interview had B.Tech as their education qualification. Quite a good amount of candidate also has previous work experience. Among the experienced candidates were the candidates already working in banks as PO, engineers working in MNCs etc. The process will continue for some more days at Delhi before the final list of selected candidate would be out.


Insurance Bharat wishes Best of Luck to all the candidates for their selection.  Please note that Insurance Bharat is a small attempt to help our friends aspiring for administrative Officer Position in the GIC companies and is not linked with any organisation. Insurance Bharat is not a profit making body and it doesn’t ask for any kind of financial assistance from any individual/organisation. Students in their own interest are requested to contact the NICL office directly to get any clarification regarding NICL AO-2014 process.

For any query….clickhere

To like us on Facebook….click here

Basic Insurance questions for selected NICL- AO 2014 aspirants

Since this is the time when most of our newly selected aspirants of NICL AO-2014 must be searching for some material to learn the basics of insurance. We at Insurance Bharat have tried our bit to help them with one of the simplest materials. We have dedicated a special section called ASK YOUR QUERY to help them further. We hope this could be of some help to them.Please note that Insurance Bharat is not a commercial site and it is specially designed  by young minds to help the people in the field without asking for anything in return. No need to say you all can always ask any doubt you have in mind with respect to NICL AO recruitment 2014, we will try to help you out. ..Best of luck to you all !!

For basic of insurance material ..click here

Any query/question ....click here

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Bank Wage Revision-Govt links increments to staff performance of public sector bank

The finance ministry has unshackled public sector banks from decades-old practice of uniform wage increases for nearly 10 lakh staff and permitted 26 lenders to provide salary raises based on performance, two bank chairman said. But it is the trade unions that will decide whether the move succeeds. Rajiv Takru, secretary (financial services), told bank chiefs at a meeting on Wednesday that they are free to provide increases provided they have been performing well. But weak banks have been ordered to limit increments to about 10% as the pile of bad loans may not justify asteeper increase, said bank chairmen who attended the meet but did not want to be identified. ..Read More

Last Step to become the AO in 4 Prestigious GIC PSUs enters its final phase

National Insurance Company Limited conducting the recruitment process for the four GIC PSUs has made all the arrangements to have a smooth process of interview for all the selected candidates. NICL which had announced the interview schedule for the shortlisted candidates for the post of AO on 22.02.2014 has made certain changes in some of its venues like Chennai Regional Office interview is now being done at Fortune Hotel and similarly Hyderabad interview venue has also been changed from Hyderabad Regional Office to The Golkonda Hotel. The best part is all these change of venue have been communicated by mails to the respective candidates by mails well within time. In some of the letters the interview time is also wrongly sent at 12:00am .While it is obvious to have minor mistakes here and there in organizing such a mammoth recruitment drive, the candidates in their own interest are requested to get clarification from the Head Office of NICL situated at 3, Middleton Street, Prafulla Chandra Sen Sarani,,, Kolkata, West Bengal, 700071.(Telephone: 22831705).

Insurance Bharat Team Congrats all the shortlisted candidates. Further we at Insuarnce Bharat are always ready to help these new Aspirants and hence we have created a special section on our site for them wherein they can ask question related with AO recruitment process.

SBI average salary at Rs 10 lakh exceeds ICICI Bank’s by 67 per cent

State Bank of India (SBI) has raised salaries by 47% from fiscal 2011 to December quarter FY14. In fact, SBI’s average salary per employee at Rs 10 lakh is 67% more than Rs 6 lakh paid by ICICI Bank.In a report, IDFC Institutional Securities said SBI’s average employee salary has risen 47% over FY11 (after the impact of pay hikes), while its better performing private sector peer ICICI Bank’s average salary has declined 22% over the same period...Read More

Sensex looks set for new life-time high; seen at 24K this year

MUMBAI: After a day's pause, thanks to Russia-Ukraine military stand-off, the S&P BSE Sensex resumed its upward journey yesterday and almost reached its all-time closing high of 21,373.66 in early trade today.
The rise in Indian equities has been possible with the return on foreign institutional investors in the month of February. They bought shares worth net Rs 1,404.30 crore in February as compared to a net buy of Rs 714.30 crore in January 2014...Read More

Read the award winning article--Development of Insurance in India

This is an award winning article which was critically acclaimed by Geneva Association and was published in 'Eutes et Dossier No. 236" from Geneva. A thriving insurance sector is of vital importance to every modern economy. First because it encourages the savings habit, second because it provides a safety net to rural and urban enterprises and productive individuals. And perhaps most importantly it generates long-term investible funds for infrastructure building. The nature of the insurance business is such that the cash inflow of insurance companies is constant while the payout is deferred and contingency related...Read More

Building customer centric organization goes beyond just being good at customer relationship management

In a competitive market where customer choice is abundant, competing on price is unlikely to be a long term viable strategy. For that insurance companies need to create a customer centric organisation that focuses on how they acquire new customers, retain profitable customers and maximise the value of customer relationships...Read More

“The Cruel World of Claims-made-and-reported Policies of Insurance”

Those are the words of Justice Quinn of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Certain Underwritersat Lloyd’s of London v. All Spec Home Inspections et al., 2013 ONSC 7149.

In this case the respondent was a self-employed home inspector who had a professional liability insurance policy through the Applicant which was renewed annually.

The respondent carried out an inspection in July 2010 at the Swallow residence and produced a report and photographs. On August 16, 2010 Paul Mambella was performing work in the attic of the Swallow residence when he came into contact with an exposed, energized and bare copper wire. He was electrocuted and died. A Ministry of Labour investigation ensued immediately in which the respondent was involved.

In August 2010 the respondent’s insurance policy came up for renewal. The Application contained the following questions which he answered “no” to:

22.             In the last five (5) years, has a claim ever been made against the applicant?

If YES, please provide the following details...

23.             Is the applicant aware of any situation or circumstance which may in the future result in a claim…

Below these questions the following exclusion appeared:

Without limitation of any other remedy available to the insurer, it is hereby agreed that if there be knowledge of any such fact, circumstance or situation, any claim or action subsequently emanating therefrom is excluded from coverage under the proposed insurance.

The Ministry of Labour conducted an inquest in late August 2011. On September 10, 2011 the respondent submitted a renewal Application and again answered “no” to the above questions.

In November 2011 the widow and children of Mambella commenced an action. After consulting a lawyer the respondent notified the applicant. The applicant brought this coverage Application.

The Policy is a claims-made-and-reported insurance policy.  The applicant argued that it relied on the representations made by the respondent in the application in renewing the policy. It further argued that the policy excluded coverage in the circumstances and the exclusion is clear and unambigious and thus results in there being no coverage available to the respondent.

 Citing the Ontario Court of Appeal in Fellowes, McNeil v. Kansa General International Insurance Company Ltd. et al., 2000 CanLII 22279, Justice Quinn held that the test whether a situation or circumstance should be reported to an insurer, as being one which may in the future result in a claim, is an objective test. The Ministry of Labour investigation and inquest “called out for notice” by the respondent to the applicant.

 
The court went onto consider how the existence of an exclusion affects the availability of relief from forfeiture under section 98 of the Courts of Justice Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. C.43. The applicant’s argument was accepted that relief from forfeiture is unavailable where a claim falls outside of the coverage due to the operation of an exclusion.   

Justice Quinn ruled in favour of the applicant denying coverage.

Bank Wage Revision Talks between IBA and UFBU ended without any result

As informed in our earlier Circular No. 20 dt. 19-2-2014, another round of negotiations on our wage revision demands was held in Mumbai today between UFBU and IBA. IBA’s team was led by its Negotiating Committee Chairman Mr. T M Bhasin while UFBU was represented by all the constituent unions...Read More

India goes to poll in 9 phases from April 7 to May 12; vote count on May 16

India goes to poll in 9 phases from April 7 to May 12; vote count on May 16..Read More

PSU general insurers' market share dips marginally, says IRDA

Market share of public sector general insurers dropped to 55.61 per cent in FY13 from 57.80 per cent in the previous fiscal despite a rise in premium collection during the period, sector regulator IRDA said in its annual report 

New India Assurance to open offices in Canada, Qatar: CMD

As part of efforts for strengthening its presence in overseas markets, insurance service provider New India Assurance was looking at setting up offices in Qatar, Myanmar and Canada, according to a top company official 

NICL and Bihar Govt. Launches Insurance for Journalist

 Nitish Kumar government  launched Bihar Rajya Patrakar Bima Yojana- 2014 to provide group mediclaim and personal accident insurance to journalists working in the state

Sanath Kumar to be next CMD of National Insurance Company Ltd!

Latest information says that K Sanath Kumar, General Manager and Whole-Time Director in The New India Assurance Co. Ltd. is now the front runner for the post of the Chairman-cum-Managing Director of the National Insurance Corporation Limited (NICL). The present incumbent NSR Chandraprasad is retiring on February 28, 2014.

Court directed Oriental Insurance company to pay Rs 2.04 lakh for stolen vehicle

 Chhattisgarh State Consumer DisputesRedressal Commission has set aside an order of Raigarh district forum and directed Oriental Insurance company to pay Rs 2.04 lakh..Read More

SC relief for long-time tenants in public buildings

 The Supreme Court on Tuesday came to the rescue of thousands of residents of housesowned by public companies by limiting the application of a tough eviction law..Read More

New India Assurance fined Rs 3 lakh for breaking mediclaim rule

The South Mumbai district consumer forum recently directed New India Assurance to compensate a policy holder Rs 3,27,067, with 6% interest from January 2010, after the insurer denied him payout.The forum also ordered additional damages of Rs 10,000 and Rs 3,000 as litigation cost reimbursement...Read More

NICL Former CMD Chandraprasad says the youth should make use of the opportunities in the insurance sector..

Read More