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The apex consumer court has often chastised those who run swimming pools in the country for their lack of safety consciousness and held them liable for the consequences. Through many of its orders, it has not only awarded compensation to the families that have lost their near and dear ones in swimming pool tragedies, but has also drawn up a list of what swimming pool authorities should do to ensure the safety of those who swim in the pools. Now, in a recent order, it has once again come to the rescue of the families that lose close relatives in swimming pool accidents. However, here the court’s ire is not directed against swimming pool authorities, but insurance companies that repudiate claims on the ground that the accident did not conform to the definition or requirement of ‘accident’ in the policies. What is this requirement? That the policy holder should have sustained ‘bodily injury resulting solely and directly from accident caused by external, violent and visible means’. The origin of the case goes back to July 14, 1996, when N. Ramananthan, a successful chartered accountant, met an untimely death while swimming in the pool of the Madras Gymkhana Club. When his wife, Padma Ramanathan, filed a claim with National Insurance for the amount insured under the Personal Accident Policy, the insurer straightaway repudiated the claim. Pointing to the definition of accident in the policy, it said in order to pay the insured amount, the policy holder should have sustained ‘bodily injury resulting solely and directly from accident caused by external, violent and visible means.’ Since there were no such external bodily injury in this case, the insurer was not liable to pay, the insurance company said. In response to the complaint against the insurance company filed by the wife, the apex court said it would refer to the law settled in England because most of the insurance companies borrowed the terms of their policies and the definitions from their counterparts in England, and the law settled on the subject by the English courts could, therefore, be the basis for deciding the matter. Said the court: "In our view, in the present case, the death caused to the insured is an accidental death as it was not natural and that the insured did not intend to die by drowning. Violent means includes any external, impersonal cause, such as drowning or inhalation of gas or even undue exertion on the part of the insured. In such cases, the death is not due to internal cause and that any cause which is not internal must be external. But this does not mean that the injury must be external. This is the law settled in England for the identical terms of insurance policy". In conclusion, it said: "In our view, in the present case, the death caused to the insured is an accidental death as it was not natural and that the insured did not intend to die by drowning". It, therefore, held that the repudiation of the claim by the insurer was unjustified and that the insured amount of Rs 25 lakh should be paid along with 12 per cent interest. Sometime ago in another order of far-reaching significance, the apex court had held that death from a cold wave also constituted an accidental death and had asked the insurer to pay (Rita Devi vs National Insurance). This case pertained to the death of a 37-year old man, Parshuram Singh, from a cold wave in Bihar. Here the main question was whether death from cold wave can be considered as accidental death. Here, too, the apex court had held that ‘‘death which does not occur in the usual course or natural course of events, which could not be reasonably anticipated, is considered to be accidental one. Death due to a cold wave is not natural and it would be accidental because all the persons may not get the same effect, and it is by natural external violent force.’’
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