National consumer panel orders UI, Canara Bank to pay Rs 89 lakh to Kurnool poultry farm

HYDERABAD: The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission directed an insurance company and a bank to pay Rs 89 lakh as insurance claim to a poultry firm of Kurnool with 9 percent interest from 2009. Finding fault with United India Insurance company and the Canara Bank for refusing insurance claim on untenable grounds, the bench, headed by commission’s national president Justice R K Agarwal, which sat at Hyderabad slapped Rs 25,000 costs on them.
The case was filed by Sona Poultry that their banker took the insurance policy worth Rs one crore and the bank staff was regularly checking the stock position of the stock of the eggs and various raw material which was kept in godown at Kurnool.
But when they lost all the material in huge and sudden floods that inundated Kurnool in 2009, the insurance company refused to pay the claim by saying that their was a discrepancy in the address of the godown.
Justice Agarwal said sitting with member M Shreesha, that since the policy was taken by the bank, the blame cannot be shifted to the poultry farm. Moreover, the authorities had been regularly checking the stock position and hence the question of wrong address does not arise.