Pathetic Aviva Scrape the Barrel

antrobus

mikey72 wrote: »

.. which was initially a valid payout on a valid claim,

Aviva initially thought so too. Whether Mr Yeates' entire claim for £220,245 plus VAT was indeed entirely valid is another question

mikey72 wrote: »

... which wasn't in dispute.

That's an assumption.

mikey72 wrote: »

If the defendant had committed fraud, it should have dealt with as any other fraud case, in that the legitimate payments were made by the insurer, and a realistic fine imposed by the courts.

You're confusing the criminal and the civil law.

mikey72 wrote: »

If it was a fine, would you expect a fraud case of £12k to carry a £170k penalty? And fraud wasn't proved, as it was a summary judgement, and the project management never appeared to be disputed either.

There was no fine. The courts have effectively decided that the insurance contract was void. Mr Yeates is simply in the position that he had no insurance on his property.

RobertoMoir

mikey72 wrote: »

No, I'm saying the defendant has lost the £170k, which has been awarded to the insurers, which was initially a valid payout on a valid claim, which wasn't in dispute.

So there was no fine, you were just using language disingenuously in order to try and make what happened to the claimant appear worse than what it actually was. Got it.

mikey72 wrote: »

If it was a fine, would you expect a fraud case of £12k to carry a £170k penalty?

But there wasn't a penalty was there? That's essentially another way of saying "fine" and you've agreed that there was no fine.

mikey72 wrote: »

And fraud wasn't proved, as it was a summary judgement, and the project management never appeared to be disputed either.

I'd suggest its a good thing for the claimant that intent to defraud wasn't proven. It does seem fairly clear from the linked notes which way the judges were leaning though.

Tirian

There are basically two perspectives on this - the moral and the legal. As any law practitioner knows, these are quite separate.

On the moral dimension, each individual will decide on the basis of their own code what they think of this - and it's pretty clear that the majority of posters here have a firm opinion of Mr. Yeates' actions.

In the legal dimension, the question is determined in the courts, by reference to the appropriate legislation. The courts have ruled against Mr. Yeates twice - and the further comments given by the judges give a clear indication of the likely outcome had the original case received a full hearing.

PDAH wrote:

The work if invoiced by an at arms length company would be recoverable. So would you call that fraud, certainly not in the sense of claiming for an non existent loss? I also think that the juvenile attempt by Yeates was easily detectable and shouldnt have caused any problem to the insurer.

I'm beginning to wonder if your screen name stands for Pliener, David - Attorney (Hardwicke) ....

Anyway, there's no evidence for this statement. As the case was decided through a summary judgement, we simply don't know whether the claims that Mr Yeates submitted were reasonable at all. It strikes me that a £10,000 + VAT project management charge for a company with no employees, and handling only one project might possibly be a tad excessive.

Again, the fact that the claimant has attempted to attain £10,000 through deception does not give one confidence that other aspects of his claim would stand up to close scrutiny. Again, since this wasn't part of the case then we don't have evidence either way.

ronekenn

Many a times it also happens that the circumstances under which the insurance companies analyze about the case for which they have to pay the recovery is not fulfills according to their scale due to which the company does not pays the insurance benefits to its client. Any of the insurance company do not take the money from its clients to keep it with itself.

PDAH

You cannot reward fraud. Remember that the claim is one insurable event.
They were committing fraud with that one claim and should not be financially
rewarded for doing so.

The court agreed and most posters on this thread
do.

The 'fraud' was not the claim but a discrete and separate part ie the project management fee...which could easily be declined and the rest of the loss dealt with as appropriate. The claim was for flood damage following a river bursting its banks and the insurers had instructed loss adjusters to deal with the repairs.

The court succumbed to an judgement application but gave leave for the claimant to appeal which the claimant did not do in time. But crucially, the court would only hear the insurers side.

In Directline V Fox you got an entirely different result.

http://www.out-law.com/page-9942

PDAH

There are basically two perspectives on this - the moral and the legal.

I think there can be any number of perspectives, common sense, economic....not just the 2 you mentioned

As any law practitioner knows, these are quite separate.

So you are a law practitioner?....and yes the 2 perspectives you mentioned would be separate......but I dont think you have to be any sort of lawyer to know that

On the moral dimension, each individual will decide on the basis of their own
code what they think of this - and it's pretty clear that the majority of
posters here have a firm opinion of Mr. Yeates' actions.

This is actually an attempt to steal some , dare I say it, moral high ground but attempting to align a rejection of Mr Yeates with good morals is misleading and you should know the majority view is not necessarily the correct view.

In the legal dimension, the question is determined in the courts, by reference to the appropriate legislation. The courts have ruled against Mr. Yeates twice - and the further comments given by the judges give a clear indication of the likely outcome had the original case received a full hearing.

The insurers were able to get a judgement application approved but the judge gave permission to appeal which the claimant did not do in time. But you cannot say what would have happened if the claimant could have argued his case properly at a hearing. Directline V Fox gave an entirely different result.

I'm beginning to wonder if your screen name stands for Pliener, David - Attorney (Hardwicke) ....

It might serve you better not to think what my screen name means.

Anyway, there's no evidence for this statement. As the case was decided through a summary judgement, we simply don't know whether the claims that Mr Yeates submitted were reasonable at all. It strikes me that a £10,000 + VAT project management charge for a company with no employees, and handling only one project might possibly be a tad excessive.

Again, the fact that the claimant has attempted to attain £10,000 through deception does not give one confidence that other aspects of his claim would stand up to close scrutiny. Again, since this wasn't part of the case then we don't have evidence either way.

Project management fees are usually a % of the claim and the insurers could simply have refused to meet the charge. The insurers had loss adjusters acting for them and as the claim was for repairs following flood damage, I would assume they are perfectly able to determine what a fair cost would be.

Tirian

PDAH wrote: »

I think there can be any number of perspectives, common sense, economic....not just the 2 you mentioned

Indeed. But one of the problems in this thread appears to be people conflating the moral perspective with the legal perspective - hence why I tried to separate them out.

PDAH wrote:

So you are a law practitioner?....and yes the 2 perspectives you mentioned would be separate......but I dont think you have to be any sort of lawyer to know that

Nope - and that doesn't follow from what I said (us common folk can know things that law practitioners know too ..)

PDAH wrote:

This is actually an attempt to steal some , dare I say it, moral high ground but attempting to align a rejection of Mr Yeates with good morals is misleading and you should know the majority view is not necessarily the correct view.

Again, not at all what I said - I have never, and would never, ascribe to a "mob rule" mindset. The point is that some on this thread feel that morally Mr. Yeates was in the wrong, some equally feel that he was not. Neither is likely to sway the other on moral grounds. One of the reasons that we have law and courts.

PDAH wrote:

But you cannot say what would have happened if the claimant could have argued his case properly at a hearing.

Quite - this is exactly the point that I made. You can, however, make your best guess. It would appear that my guess doesn't agree with yours.

PDAH wrote:

It might serve you better not to think what my screen name means.

Rather cryptic ... what's your point?

My point was mainly that you appear to be taking this case rather personally ... it's rather curious behaviour to dig out a very specific case, which has had little or no mainstream coverage and pursue it at this sort of length on a forum.

PDAH wrote:

Project management fees are usually a % of the claim and the insurers could simply have refused to meet the charge. The insurers had loss adjusters acting for them and as the claim was for repairs following flood damage, I would assume they are perfectly able to determine what a fair cost would be.

Indeed. However the fact that they clearly decided to examine this claim more closely suggests that their loss adjusters, at some point, became less than happy. What they "could" have done is entirely irrelevant. Anyone can decided to turn a blind eye. I "could" choose not to report when I get mugged - but that has no bearing on either the moral or the legal standing of the act of mugging.

vaio

here is a new precedent for claims that might be part fraudulent

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/insurers-lose-appeal-over-damages-102829642.html

Seems a much more sensible approach to me than striking out the whole claim, wonder if Mr Yates can get his case looked at again

dunstonh

So, in other words, everyone can attempt to commit fraud and if you get away with it then yippee and if you dont get away with it you dont lose out in any way. Something very wrong with that.

vaio

But isn't that exactly the position the insurance companies are in?

They wrongly deny all or part of a claim and it gets turned over by FOS/court then all they have to do is pay what they should have paid initially.

Seem to me this judgement goes some way towards levelling the playing field