Beacon, Workbench decision rests with the courts
Sat, 10/22/2016 - 12:00am
OFFICIALS of Beacon Insurance Company Limited say they intend to abide by whatever decision is made by the Barbados courts in relation to the matter involving the company and Workbench Furniture Limited.
Chief Operations Officer of Beacon Insurance, Christopher Woodhams, said so yesterday while bringing the media up to date on the matter. The case is to be heard in court next year.
The two sides have not been able to resolve a claim following a fire which gutted Workbench Furniture Limited.
“We are now in court. We have full confidence in the Barbados court and we will support whatever is the outcome of the court’s decision,” Woodhams said while breaking Beacon Insurance’s long silence on the matter.
“You would have noticed a very determined silence on this matter. The reason why we were silent is because for the two to three years of this loss…our intent was always to settle the matter rather than trying to antagonise the matter,” he explained.
“If you are trying to settle something, then you do not want to antagonise the claimant or the person you are settling with,” Woodhams said.
“Now that we have come to point in that claim where there is at this time, no chance of there being a settlement, we are now comfortable sharing our position on it now,” the COO stated.
However, he told the media it was not a property loss. Mr. Woodhams pointed out that Workbench Furniture did not own the building, and the claim by Workbench is one of a financial loss.
“The claim essentially was for stock, machinery, equipment, goods for sale, and also what is referred to as business interruption policy, which is essentially a policy that covers you for lost of profit incurred by the fire,” the COO said.
He also stated that like any prudent insurer, it was important for Beacon to understand that there are other stakeholders involved, including re-insurers and policyholders, in the matter as well.
The insurance company also said it did its own investigations, which included an adjuster to quantify the physical loss, an independent accountant to evaluate the financial circumstances of Workbench, and because there was a fire, to rely on the report of the Barbados Fire Service.
“So essentially, these three Independent bodies were a large part of the due diligence done,” he added.