‘No vehicle claim if owner is negligent’

Vadodara: If you forgot to lock your vehicle, then you may as well forget to claim insurance too. For, this will not be labelled as ‘theft’ per se. A consumer forum in Vadodara dismissed a complaint filed by an owner of a vehicle whose insurance claim was rejected by the insurance firm on similar grounds.
Arpita Parmar had filed a complaint in the Vadodara district consumer disputes redressal commission (main) against Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Company Ltd in 2019. In her complaint, Parmar said that she had bought a two-wheeler in March 2018 and got it insured from Bajaj Allianz. In September 2018, she parked her vehicle near her office but forgot its key in the vehicle’s boot space. When she returned in the evening her vehicle was missing. CCTV footage showed that some unidentified person stole her vehicle, following which filed an FIR at Gotri police station and also informed the insurance firm . Parmar told the forum that the insurance firm rejected her claim on the arguement that she had mentioned in the FIR that she forgot to remove the key from the vehicle. It said that it was the negligence on the complainant’s part and hence as per policy, the insurance claim was rejected.
The forum agreed to the firm’s observation and rejected her complaint.