To obtain insurance, you need to find out about the death of the insured in a timely manner – Kommersant

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (SC) made a decision on the dispute between the insurance company Helios and Trust LLC regarding the payment of insurance compensation for a deceased borrower.

Back in 2012, the Asia-Pacific Bank issued a loan to Gennady Matveev for 320 thousand rubles, the borrower’s life was insured by Helios Insurance Company. Mr. Matveev stopped making payments, and in December 2014 the court collected the debt at the bank’s claim. The citizen did not fulfill this decision voluntarily, and the creditor turned to the bailiffs only in 2019, after which he assigned the debt in favor of Trust LLC. In June 2021, Trust informed Helios about the death of the borrower and demanded an insurance payment. The insurer refused to pay, pointing out that the borrower died four years ago (in 2017) and the statute of limitations had passed.

But the arbitration courts recovered 223.9 thousand rubles in favor of Trust. from the insurance company. Later, Helios achieved the transfer of the case to the Economic College of the Supreme Court, which canceled court decisions.

The ruling of the Supreme Court, published on September 26, states that the policyholder or beneficiary is obliged to notify the insurer of the occurrence of an insured event immediately from the moment they become aware of it. At the same time, the Supreme Court emphasized, both the bank and the company could find out about the borrower’s death “by exercising due diligence, acting reasonably and in good faith.”

However, knowing about the long delay on the loan and the failure to comply with the court decision, the bank did not take action to find out the reasons for such delay and for several years did not turn to the bailiffs for forced collection of the debt, the Supreme Court noted. The Trust company, having purchased the right to demand this debt from a citizen, also did not take any measures to clarify the situation for a long time, did not appeal the bailiff’s inaction and “only 15 months later discovered that the debtor had died long before the initiation of enforcement proceedings,” the document says. The insurer indicated that such behavior led to the filing of a claim with the statute of limitations expired, but the courts did not evaluate these arguments, the Supreme Court panel emphasized. In this regard, the case was sent for a new trial.

Anna Zanina