No-fault insurance long overdue

CAP congratulates the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail for proposing that the no-fault liability scheme be implemented.

Such a scheme is long overdue. We had as far back as the late 1970s and in the early 1990s, called for the introduction of some kind of no-fault motor insurance to benefit consumers. The idea behind no-fault insurance is to get accident victims compensated as quickly as possible.

Under no-fault it becomes irrelevant who is responsible for the accident. It assumes that accidents are by and large accidents, not intentional assaults.

Therefore society’s efforts should be aimed not at finding fault but at helping out the victims. Under no-fault liability, injured accident victims will automatically be entitled to some form of compensation at the time when they need it most .

At the Tun Hussein Onn Memorial Lectures in 1995, the late Tan Sri Dato’ Harun Mahmud Hashim , a former Supreme Court judge spoke of the need for a no-fault liability scheme.

He suggested that the scheme be funded by a compulsory contribution which will be included as part of the driving license fee. The contribution which is collected by the Road Transport Department will then be forwarded to the Social Security Organisation (SOCSO). SOCSO will then administer the no-fault liability scheme as it is familiar with dealing with personal injury claims, dependency claims and death claims.

As the two schemes presently provided by SOCSO are themselves no-fault insurance schemes, we hope that the Attorney-General will look into the suggestion that the scheme be run by SOCSO.