NEW DELHI: The West Bengal state consumer commission has held an insurance company liable for deficiency in service and directed it to pay the full insured value of a vehicle along with Rs 1 lakh compensation whose accident claim was never settled or rejected for nearly a decade.What was the issue?Kanchan Dutta, the vehicle owner, had insured his vehicle with ICICI Lombard. In August 2008, the vehicle met with an accident on National Highway 60 and was completely damaged. Dutta filed an insurance claim and submitted all the required documents.The insurance company appointed a surveyor to examine the vehicle and he assessed the damage as 100 per cent. However, the insurance company neither settled the claim nor formally rejected it. Instead, it simply went silent.After waiting for years without any response, Dutta sent a legal notice to the company in November 2017. When that too was ignored, he filed a complaint before the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum in Paschim Medinipur in December 2017, nearly nine years after the accident.The district forum ruled in his favour and directed the insurance company to pay Rs 3,07,800 as the insured declared value of the vehicle, along with nine per cent interest from the date of filing, Rs 1 lakh as compensation and Rs 5,000 as litigation cost. The company was further directed to deposit Rs 10,000 in the state consumer welfare fund as penalty.ICICI Lombard challenged this order before the state commission.What did the commission say?The bench comprising Judicial Member Rajes Guha Ray and Member Santanu Saha dismissed the appeal and upheld the district forum’s order in its entirety.On the insurance company’s primary argument that the complaint was filed nine years after the accident and was therefore time-barred, the commission held that the delay was largely of the insurers insurer’s own making. It noted that the company had a duty to either settle the claim or reject it within a reasonable time, and having done neither, it could not now turn around and blame the complainant for the delay.“It has solemn a solemn duty to the customer to settle the claim or repudiate it within reasonable time,” the commission said.The commission further noted that the insurance company had appointed a surveyor who assessed the damage and submitted his report to the company. Yet the company chose not to produce this report before the forum.“Adverse inference can be drawn against the insurer and as such the claim of the complainant as 100 per cent damage of the vehicle cannot be held wrong,” it said.The commission also rejected the company’s argument that a 14-day delay in lodging the FIR cast doubt on whether the accident had actually taken place, finding no merit in it. Affirming the district forum’s order in full, the commission directed the parties to bear their own costs for the appeal.