Reasonableness of the limits Prescribed for the Insurer Recovering from the Insured Compensation Paid due to Being Injured Through Car Accidents: An Applied Study
Dr. Saleh Nasser Al Otaibi
KILAW
Abstract:
If the Civil liability insurance provides security for the insured throughout the validity period of the contract from claiming compensation from the insured party in the event of proven civil liability, the insurer shall assume that responsibility in exchange for the insurance premium. However, the legislative regulation of the compulsory insurance contract of car accidents created a different reality. The executive regulation of the Traffic Law No. 81 of 1976 is interested in the advantage of the injured party primarily by creating a whole person, which is the insurance company that is obliged to compensate him for all the damages, whether material or moral damages and without a ceiling of the compensation, and granted him the right to bring a claim directly against the insurer, the insurance company, while not permitting the insurer to initiate legal proceedings against the injured party’s claim to uphold the reasons behind the lapse of right that allow the insurer, according to the general rules of the insurance contract, to evade their obligation by paying the insurance in certain circumstances. As for the insured, it has limited its interest in him in determining the value of the premium by a decision issued by the Ministry of Interior.
Due to the limited insurance premium, the insurance companies found themselves in a situation that could lead to heavy losses due to the large number of car accidents, which was not mitigated by the large number of insurance contracts they entered into. However, the insurance companies found a solution in sections 75 and 76 of the said Traffic Regulations when they allowed them to recover from the insured, the owner of the car, the compensation they paid him if he violates certain restrictions. There are no problems with the restrictions in Article 76, as its source is the law. Therefore, it is considered reasonable because it reveals the intentional or serious mistakes committed by the insured or the car owner which would prevent him from obtaining the insurance’s protection. The problem, however, appears in Article 75, which has authorized the insurer, the insurance company, to establish restrictions on the insured or the car owner that recognize its right to recover the compensation, provided that they are reasonable restrictions and within the limits of using and driving the car, without interfering with the traffic law and its regulations. The insurance companies, however, have expanded in including, within their contracts, numerous, reasonable and unreasonable restrictions.
In this research, we highlight the limitations of the agreement included in the compulsory insurance contracts for seven insurance companies, through which we recognized what is considered reasonable and unreasonable. We also discussed the criterion adopted by the judiciary in this regard through its provisions.