Insurance Issues Seminar Emphasizes the importance of National Guidelines for Identification of Disability Percentages and Special Departments in Courts for Insurance Litigations

The participants in the Second Seminar on insurance issues, organized by the Capital Market Authority, stressed the importance of having standard national guidelines for identification of disability percentages in medical reports beside the importance of having special departments in courts for insurance litigation. This comes in the context of the endeavors of the participating entities in the seminar to generate solutions on the key issues related to insurance sector to ease the litigation procedures and to ensure justice for the parties in the insurance relationship to protect policyholders.

The event was organized under the patronage of HE Isa Hamed Mohammed Al Azri, Secretary General of the Supreme Judicial Council for consultation and dialogue to reach to common understanding and agree on integrated methodologies serving the public interest with the attendance of judges from the Supreme Judicial Council, representatives of the Ministry of Health, Omani Insurance Association, Directorate General of Traffic and representatives of insurance companies and brokers and law firms.

The session was opened by speech delivered by HE the Executive President of the Capital Market Authority.  

Challenges to the Omani Judiciary

The seminar commenced with a working paper on the implementation of the recommendations of the first seminar held in 2013 presented by Said Rashid Al Saidi, Director of Consumers and Policyholders Protection Department of the Capital Market Authority.

The seminar discussed a number of topics including those related to the challenges to the Omani courts in resolving insurance disputes.

Judge Shaikh Sulaiman Nasser Al Naibi, Supreme Court Judge, reviewed observations on medical reports and the procedures taken by insurance companies as well as poor awareness of those who incur damage, inaccurate decisions in civil liability and litigation procedures. The paper stressed the importance of having detailed legislative provisions to assist the courts in rulings and to control judicial discretion.  

Judge Badr Khamis Al Yazidi, debated about the challenges of estimating the damage in traffic accidents in the Omani judicial applications pointing out to the meaning of the term “in favor of other” in the Insurance companies law. He also discussed the mechanism of compensation as per the personal accidents appendix as well as multiple insurances on the vehicle and joint liability beside other challenges such as the liability of the owner of animals and combining compensations for bodily injuries and disability percentage and combining compensation for injury with Diya “Blood Money”.

Challenges to the Medical Sector

Dr. Fatima Mahmoud Al Hikmaniya, Director of Environmental and Occupational Health presented a paper on the basis and standards for calculation of the percentage of medical disability pointing out to the statistics of the disability assessment committees of the Ministry of Health for the past two years pointing out to the mechanism for preparing medical reports related to disability cases and determining the percentage and the key challenges facing the committees in this regard.

A working paper on the insurance experiences and lessons between the general courts and competent courts in addition to the impact and challenges of judicial rulings on the insurance sector was presented by Hussein Yousuf Al Ajmi, Chief Executive Officer of Insurance and Financial Studies Institution in the Kingdom of Bahrain.

Challenges to Insurance Companies

Insurance companies, represented by the Omani Insurance Association presented a working paper delivered by Mohammed Qahtan Al Busaidy, Legal Advisor of Oman United Insurance Company titled Court Rulings in Insurance, Impact and Challenges. He pointed out to the key challenges encountering insurance companies in this respect including compensations pursuant to Royal Decree No. 118/2008 for compensations of persons injured by “others” (third parties) and compensations issued by courts according to personal accidents appendix and the matter of limitation in traffic accidents as well as the liability for the accident. He spoke about the medical reports stressing the importance of having national guidelines for evaluation of disability percentages as well as having special departments in the courts for insurance litigations.