The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A top QC yesterday admitted “there’s no question the time is long past” for the Bahamas to establish a fund to compensate victims of uninsured and ‘hit-and-run’ drivers, agreeing - at least on this issue - with the Court of Appeal’s president.

Brian Moree, senior partner at McKinney, Bancroft & Hughes, agreed that this nation should look to create something similar to the UK’s Motor Insurers’ Bureau.

This theme had been taken up by Justice Anita Allen in a court ruling involving property and casualty insurance underwriter, Insurance Company of the Bahamas (ICB) - a verdict that could have major ramifications for both the insurance industry as a whole, and Bahamian consumers (see lead story on Page 1B).

The UK’s Motor Insurers Bureau, founded in 1946, provides compensation to victims of accidents caused by uninsured and untraced drivers, and Justice Allen said it mitigated “the injustice of innocent, uncompensated third parties”.

And she added: “Regrettably, we have no such fund in the Bahamas from which innocent third parties may be compensated.

“I would commend to the relevant authorities the establishment of a fund similar to the Motor Insurance Bureau in the United Kingdom, to which injured and non-compensated victims not covered by the reach of this judgment can look to for relief.”

Mr Moree, who had represented ICB in the court matter in question, agreed with Justice Allen on this aspect of her ruling.

He told Tribune Business: “There’s no question that the time is long past in the Bahamas when we should look at creating a Motor Insurers Bureau, but the fact of the matter is that to-date we do not have one.”

Meanwhile, Mr Moree said he had reviewed the main issues raised by the Court of Appeal’s verdict and “advised our clients that it should be appealed to the Privy Council”.

Insurers had told this newspaper that the verdict, handed down on Friday, had “really huge implications” for both insurers and businesses/consumers, as it renders “invalid” the ‘restricted driver’ clauses contained in most Bahamian auto policies.

However, Mr Moree argued that the Bahamian Road Traffic Act was “not in the same form” as similar legislation in the UK and other jurisdictions where ‘restricted driver’ clauses had been deemed “invalid” by the legislature - not the courts.

The top QC said the main issue raised by Friday’s verdict was whether the Court of Appeal had gone further than Parliament in its interpretation of the Bahamas’ existing legislation.

“The question that arises from the judgment is whether or not the Court of Appeal was right to extend the legislation to prohibit ‘authorised driver’ clauses when Parliament has not deemed it appropriate to make these amendments in this jurisdiction,” Mr Moree told Tribune Business.