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发帖数: 948 | 1 Relatives of passengers onboard Malaysia Airlines flight MH370
As the search for any wreckage for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight
continues, insurance experts have warned of "divergent" compensation claims,
with the families of U.S. passengers potentially receiving millions more
than their Asian counterparts.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said on Monday that Malaysia Airlines
Flight 370 - missing for more than two weeks – was lost "beyond any
reasonable doubt." New satellite data indicated the plane was probably at
the bottom of the southern Indian Ocean, Razak added.
All 239 of the people on the plane – 227 passengers and 12 crew – are
assumed to have died.
The airline must pay the families of those on board around $176,000 under a
multilateral treaty known as the Montreal Convention, and said it had
already given relatives $5,000 per passenger in compensation.
But relatives can also sue for further damages - and it is these further pay
-outs that experts warn could vary widely.
(Read more: Malaysia says jet went down in sea, bad weather halts search)
"Compensation for loss of life is vastly different between U.S. passengers
and non-U.S. passengers," Terry Rolfe, leader of the aviation practice at
Integro Insurance Brokers, told CNBC.
"If the claim is brought in the U.S. courts, it's of significantly more
value than if it's brought into any other court. And for U.S. citizens there
is no problem getting into the U.S. courts."
Ahmad Jauhari Yahya, CEO of Malaysia Airlines, says the airline's top
priority remains taking care of families and relatives from the missing
MH370 jet.
Numerous nationalities
There were passengers of 14 different nationalities on board the flight,
Malaysia Airlines said, with the majority – 152 – Chinese. There were also
38 passengers from Malaysia, seven were Indonesian, six were from
Australian and three Americans were on board, among other nationalities.
Rolfe estimated that an American court could pay out between $8-10 million
on a per-passenger basis, but compensation would be a fraction of this
outside of the U.S. In China, she estimated relatives would receive less
than $1 million per passenger.
Allianz, the main reinsurer for the missing Malaysia Airlines yet, has
already started pay out on claims relating to its disappearance, according
to Reuters.
The German insurance giant would not comment on financial details, but The
Telegraph reported that some $110 million had been placed in an escrow
account and Allianz had agreed to make hardship payments to the relatives of
those on the fight.
Where claims can be brought
The Montreal Convention dictates that a claim has to be brought in one of
five places: where the carrier is domiciled; its main place of business;
where the ticket was bought; the destination of the flight or the primary
residence of the plaintiff.
"So for the majority of passengers on this flight, this is either China or
Malaysia and these countries have very limited views of damages as opposed
to America," Illinois-based aviation crash attorney Floyd Wisner told CNBC.
(Read more: How 19th century physics was used to trace missing plane)
"They could evaluate these cases and say a Chinese life is (of) less value
than an American life. That's unfair and that's going to cause problems."
Indeed, Wisner said disparate pay-outs could lead to international backlash
– especially if the plights of the families continued to be highly
publicized.
"I would be raising holy hell if I was a family member of a passenger from
one country getting less than someone who happened to be sitting next to me
from another country," he said.
Another option open to the families is a class-action lawsuit, which would
allow multiple relatives to sue over the same legal grounds.
"In theory, a class action would give the families more clout - because they
're acting together rather than just as one person," Mike Burns, a lawyer
who specializes in transport insurance at British law firm Weightmans, told
CNBC.
"But where there's more clients, there's more money to be made - so a class
action lawsuit is of massive financial benefit to the lawyers."
The airline and insurer will want to avoid this by being pro-active, he
added, reassuring relatives that their individual claims will be managed
swiftly and sensitively.
Denny Kelly, Principal at Kelly-James & Associates, says the theory of
someone in the crew taking over the airplane is the most likely explanation
for why the Malaysia Airlines flight 370 was diverted from its flight path.
One reason for the high compensation pay-outs in the U.S., according to New
York-based Rolfe, was the sheer number of attorneys and litigators here
willing to take on the cases.
"There are a significant numbers of lawyers here who take on these airline
cases and they know how to use to court system. They're used to doing it,"
she said. "And there isn't the same level of attorney or litigation or
precedence in the rest of the world."
Same amount per passenger?
Wisner said the airline could pay out between $500-750 million in total
compensation to the families, and was likely to have liability insurance to
value of around $1 billion.
(Read more: Doomed Malaysia Air flight 'lost beyond doubt')
But he added that the total amount paid out could be reduced by offering one
amount per passenger – whatever their nationality.
"They could aim for one standard for all, " he said. "It would be worth
trying to avoid this disparate treatment and pay a flat-sum per passenger."
Integro Insurance Brokers' Terry Rolfe, however, said this was unlikely. "
The families won't sign off on it if they know they can get a higher pay-out
in the U.S. courts," she added. |
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