Drunk driver ordered to refund €20,650 insurance payout

A man whose insurer had paid €20,650 to third parties due to an accident he had caused has been ordered to reimburse the company after a court was told he had been drunk at the time.

Gasan Mamo Insurance Ltd had sued Dutchman Alexander Jan Edward Van Reeven, together with his mother Jeanette Marie, over a claim relating to a 2009 traffic accident in Paola. Van Reeven had been driving his mother's car, which was insured with Gasan Mamo, towards Cospicua when he skidded and crashed into two parked cars.

Van Reeven had initially filed a police report, claiming that the car had been stolen from Sliema, but later admitted that his was not true. He had, however, insisted that the accident had not been related to alcohol – this despite confirming that he had consumed alcohol before driving.

Shortly after the accident, Van Reeven's mother had opened an insurance claim. The son had declared that he had drunk a number of beers at a bar in Sliema and had been involved in a collision on his way home. He had left the scene to find the police, he claimed.

The Dutchman told the court that he had no idea as to why he had falsely reported the vehicle as having been stolen.

In 2009, Van Reeven was charged with filing a false police report, a crime for which he was later convicted. The owners of the two damaged cars subsequently filed arbitration proceedings and had been awarded €10,489 and €10,065, respectively as compensation for the damage to their vehicles.

Gasan Mamo had then filed a lawsuit before the First Hall of the Civil Court against the mother and son, asking to be reimbursed for the payouts they had made to the third parties.

After hearing the evidence and submissions from both sides, judge Jacqueline Padovani Grima concluded that the mother could not be held responsible for what happened. Van Reeven, however, was found to have breached the conditions of his insurance cover by driving whilst under the influence of alcohol. For this reason, the court ordered the man to reimburse the insurer the sum it had paid to the injured parties.