Underhanded insurance companies

Government Senator Charles Sinclair has ripped into what he has described as “underhanded insurance companies”, which he said only respond to third party claims when court action is initiated. Sinclair, a veteran attorney- at-law, made the accusation in the Senate on Friday during his contribution to the debate on the Jamaica Consumer and Competition Authority Bill, 2026. The authority will in effect be a merger of the Consumer Affairs Commission and the Fair Trading Commission. Sinclair described third parties (the victims) as being “on the other side of the coin to policyholders of motor vehicle insurance”. “Many of these third parties are not motor vehicle owners but are pedestrians or cyclists. Many are innocent passengers in a vehicle trying to get from one place to another to earn a living or just get on with their lives. Unfortunately, an accident arises; they suffer loss or damage, leaving them challenged in many respects and in need of compensation,” Sinclair said. “The policyholder has acted properly in reporting to the insurance carrier with facts which clearly and indisputably establish negligence on his part. He expects his policy to protect him from a court action,” Sinclair added. However, he lamented that in many instances when a claim is submitted, even in cases when attorneys are engaged, the claimant is met with total silence. He said such silence includes correspondence not responded to for months; telephone calls being screened; calls not returned; and the telephone ringing without answer until the call is disconnected. “Many of the insurance companies move to settlement when court action is brought. That is the only time you see them moving,” Sinclair charged. He said it was the delay tactics on the part of insurance carriers that force court action to be filed, further placing burden on an overburdened court system. “They know the delay in the Supreme Court, and they know the limit on the monetary jurisdiction in the Parish Court. They know Jamaicans are not generally litigious. Many give up and suffer in silence. Many abandon parts of genuine claims just to get a little compensation,” Sinclair told his colleagues. “Those practices are blatantly underhanded. The public needs real protection from the bodies that can correct these shortcomings,” he insisted. Sinclair reasoned that these practices, which hurt the victims of accidents, are more egregious when one takes account of the fact that insurance coverage provided by private enterprise is mandated by law under the Motor Vehicle (Third Party Risks) Act and enforced by the Jamaica Constabulary Force. “The insurance carrier is the only business that has the Government working on its enforcement,” he said. A former mayor of Montego Bay who still sits in the St James Municipal Corporation as a councillor, Sinclair repeated a call for the minister of justice to increase the monetary jurisdiction of the parish court from $1 million to $5 million. He said this was necessary since many of the insurance carriers move to settlement when court action is filed. “The parish court is the court which gives the small man greater access to justice, and it’s high time we make the adjustment to allow them to recover their full claim without having to abandon any part of their claim,” Sinclair argued. He noted that in other jurisdictions, legislation has been created over the past 10 years to ensure prompt settlement of claims by the creation of timelines and standards. “We should look at what can be adopted to better fit our circumstances,” he said, while noting that the trust factor is so low between insurers and the insured that Jamaicans were referring to the entire industry as a sham, and deeming those in charge to be scammers.