Prudential bows to court ruling over accident payout

Prudential Vietnam has bowed to a ruling by the People’s Court in the northern province of Hai Duong, transferring 750 million dong to the provincial Law Enforcement as payout for an insurance claim it said to be a cheat.
A source from the life insurer said March 2 that Prudential had performed procedures to transfer the sum payable by the company as ruled by the court of appeal at its hearing in December last year. According to the ruling, Prudential had to pay the money to a policy holder named Vu Quang Dong in Hai Duong, who was said to suffer from a traffic accident three years ago which resulted in one of his legs amputated.
The life insurer at both the first-instance hearing and the court of appeal disputed this claim, saying the accident was not proven as it had not been confirmed by the due authorities.
Therefore, “we reserve our viewpoint not to cover the accident insurance for Dong as there were signs of cheating on the insurance policy. However, we abide by the court decision,” the source said.
Reportedly, Dong had signed to buy four life insurance policies from Prudential in 2001 through Vu Trung Thanh who is the son of Dong and also a sales agent for Predential at the time. Prudential’s statement last year said Dong had also bought insurance policies from two other firms–Hanoi Life Insurance and Bao Minh CMG. The value of the insurance contracts Dong allegedly signed with the three companies totaled 3.6 billion dong.
Conflicting official police reports cast doubt on whether Duong lost his leg due to the motorbike accident.
[See Vietnam Media Watch June 4 2004]

 

Category: Legal