Insurer fails to prove that insured faked the theft of car

Saskatchewan’s provincial court ruled in November that an insurer failed to prove on a balance of probabilities that an insured faked the theft of his automobile. In Banbury v Saskatchewan Government Insurance, Michael Banbury, the insured, reported his car stolen from his apartment building’s parking lot in September 2007.Two weeks later, the car was recovered with virtually no damage and a key sitting in the centre console. Banbury reported to SGI in his theft affidavit that he had two sets of keys to the vehicle, both of which were in his possession at the time of theft. He later admitted that there was a third set he had previously assumed lost. He suggested the third set of keys may have been tucked under the floor mat of the car at the time it was stolen.SGI denied his claim on the basis that he forgot to mention that he left a set of keys in the car in his theft affidavit. SGI’s suspected Banbury had arranged for the theft when he mentioned in subsequent questioning that he may have left the window open to the car on the night of the theft. “While Mr. Banbury presented himself to the court as a credible witness, his statements to SGI officials, including his ‘theft affidavit,’ and his testimony in court were casual to the point of being careless,” wrote Provincial Court of Saskatchewan Justice D. G. Bogdasavich. “I attribute this more to personality than ‘wilful false statement.’”Bogdasavich referred to Regina Steam Laundry v. SGI for a definition of ‘wilfully false statement.’In this definition, the statement must be deliberately false and deliberately intended to deceive the insurer. There must be about it some fraudulent cloud rendering it dishonest, deceiving and morally false.“I find Mr. Banbury’s initial answers in his affidavit respecting the number of keys he had and the car being locked, and his later statements to SGI officials he had three keys and he may have left one in the car and in fact even left the car window open, do not meet this definition.”SGI was ordered to pay Banbury Cdn$6,594.59 less his deductible and $250 in costs.