An insurance company requests the recovery of the Rolls-Royce wreckage 10 years after the accident

After nearly 10 years, an insurance company realized that it had not received the wreckage of a luxury Rolls Royce car that was completely destroyed in an accident, despite having paid the insurance value of 1.4 million dirhams for the benefit of a company that owns the car. So it filed a civil lawsuit demanding its receipt, but its request was rejected due to the expiration of the period.

The details of the case go back to a lawsuit filed by an insurance company against the car’s owner, in which it confirmed that it insured the Rolls-Royce Phantom under an insurance policy valid during the years 2014 and 2015.

The plaintiff company said that the car was involved in an accident in January 2015, and was considered a total loss, which prompted it to pay insurance compensation worth 1.4 million dirhams to the car’s owner according to a check that was cashed in March of the same year.

She added that the car owner, after receiving compensation, was required to hand over the vehicle and relinquish it to the insurance company in accordance with the procedures followed in such cases, but she refrained from doing so despite repeated friendly demands, which prompted the company to file its lawsuit to demand the delivery of the car or oblige the defendant to pay its value.

For its part, the defendant argued that the lawsuit should not be heard due to the passage of time, stressing that the incident in dispute dates back to 2015, and that the insurance company did not take any judicial action throughout the following years, before it took the initiative to file the lawsuit at the end of 2024.

Upon examination of the lawsuit papers, the court found that the accident occurred on January 31, 2015, and that the insurance company paid the compensation amount of 1.4 million dirhams according to a check that was cashed by the defendant in the same year, which is the date that the court considered the last action related to the incident in question.

The court confirmed that Article 1036 of the Civil Transactions Law stipulates that lawsuits arising from an insurance contract shall not be heard after three years have passed since the occurrence of the incident that gave rise to the lawsuit or the interested party became aware of it.

She pointed out that the insurance company did not provide any evidence of taking any legal action that would interrupt the statute of limitations throughout the years that followed the disbursement of the compensation amount, and that the claim statement was not filed until December 2024, that is, more than 10 years after the incident.

The court considered that the claim to hand over the car was originally based on the insurance contract itself, and therefore was subject to the legal period prescribed for hearing this type of claim, which had completely passed many years before the lawsuit was filed.

The court concluded by ruling not to hear the case due to the expiration of the time limit, and obliging the insurance company to pay fees and expenses and an amount of 1,000 dirhams for attorney’s fees.

mfouda@ey.ae

Prepared by: Muhammad Fouda