Tourism sector – are you exposed to claims from overseas?

As many of you will know, JWS has provided our extensive Safari Plan policy for the tourism sector for over a decade, providing the widest cover available for our clients. Hundreds of claims have been settled over that period, from fire to floods, vehicle accidents, evacuations and injury claims and we are extremely proud of the success of the policy.

Today, I wanted to mention the age-old issue regarding ‘jurisdiction’. I will not get too technical on this, but fundamentally, this relates to the country where a legal dispute has to be held under the insurance policies. For general liability local policies, the norm is Kenya, some go further afield to East Africa. The JWS Safari Plan Liability policy provides worldwide jurisdiction, including, if required, USA/Canada.

So, the question I am often asked is ‘if I am in Kenya, then all legal disputes have to be brought in Kenya, so why should I worry about having a wider jurisdiction?’. Historically, the answer has been that, if a claim starts internationally, then it is prudent to have lawyers on hand in the specific country for the initial ‘legal standoff’. We have seen several incidents where the legal costs have become rather high in the area where the case originates but a recent incident has made us even more aware of the need for this cover.

Without going into specifics, we have an ongoing case, where there was an injury to a USA based guest, and she has sued one of our clients in the USA. Under the Safari Plan policy, local lawyers have been appointed, but also we have retained a lawyer in America. This lawyer specializes in injury claims and our clients, the local lawyers and JWS have had an interesting few exchanges and conference call last week.

Again, without becoming too technical, the outcome is, despite our clients having no legal presence in America, no limited entity, offices or the like, they do have a representative based there and they do have around 10 travel agents promoting their products. As a result, there is a chance that the case could be heard in the USA and the award could be made there. Of course, there is still the issue, if the plaintiff wins the case in USA, that they still have to come to Kenya to recover the award, but it is in the best interest of our client that we ‘cut this off at the pass’. The legal discussions continue, my client has to make depositions, and the legal fees are increasing.

Obviously, this development is of great interest, because the majority of our clients sell their products via agents and tour operators worldwide, so the worldwide jurisdiction cover, in our view, is essential. The JWS Safari Plan policy provides this extension. So if you want to be sure you can access legal representation overseas when a claim is made, make sure you consider this cover.

If you require further assistance or have questions on the above, please contact us on:

Tel: + 254 (0) 709 455 000 or talk2us@jwseagon.com