Truck insurance blowback possible in wake of $18m Ghan claim

Insurance premiums for trucking firms are bound to be affected if Ghan operator Great Southern Railway is successful in its $18m claim against the driver and owner of a B-double that crashed into the train last December and such a success marks the start of a trend, insurance experts have told Lloyd’s List DCN . Great Southern Railway chief executive Tony Braxton-Smith said his company was only doing the same as other operators in a similar position. &#8220At this stage it is an insurance claim, it is a large one, we’re taking legal advice, we have suffered a significant loss and we are seeking to recover that,&#8221 Mr Braxton-Smith said &#8220Trucks have done an amount of damage to a number of trains from a number of level-crossing incidents over the last year. &#8220I’m certain that each of the companies that has suffered damage or loss is making a claim against the appropriate organisation seeking to recover their losses. &#8220That’s all we are doing. &#8220It is a significant claim and it is likely to be a lengthy process.&#8221 The locomotive and five carriages were damaged in the Ghan crash. National Transport Insurance industry affairs manager Owen Driscoll said local insurers would lay off the bulk of the $18m &#8211 perhaps $15m &#8211 if it came to that to reinsurers, usually linked to the Lloyd’s insurance market in London. &#8220There will be ramifications if it ends up being $18m,&#8221 Mr Driscoll said. &#8220I doubt that it will be but that will be argued over quite a period of time. &#8220The insurers at some stage, given what’s been happening particularly in the past two or three years, are going to get together and say `well what are we going to do about all this’.&#8221 The Lloyd’s insurance market’s Australia representative, Keith Stern, said reinsurers’ &#8220hands were tied&#8221 until policies were renewed. Any changes can be expected then if the risk of exposure to heavy claims is greater.

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