#6402 #6403
#10 - JRL 6403
From: "Peter Calder" <petercalder@mtu-net.ru>
Subject: Public Liability
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002
The Role of the Concept and the Emergence of Public Liability Insurance and its Implications for Future Prudential Underwriting in Russia and the States of the Former Soviet Bloc and its Adjacent Regions.
A subject that weights heavily upon the collective minds of western insurance executives, is that minefield of liability that surrounds the PUBLIC.
Over recent years in modern lands, like America and Great Britain, there has evolved a new sub class of humanoid that is generally referred to by its generic label, the PUBLIC.
This diverse strain has shown an anti evolutionary trait that would have left Darwin and his understudies in a state of some perplexity.
Of course the PUBLIC has always been a feature of western civilisation but over a short generational span its outward behavioural patterns have undergone a profound change. A kind of revision that defies the long established and previously well understood characteristics of any specie that exists on this planet. As we had previously understood things, the continued existence and success of a species was intimately related to the concept of the survival of the fittest. This newly emerged and anti scientific feature that has become manifest, lies within a contrary concept.
Whereas, once in the wild, the individual found it useful to learn about and contemplate upon, such things as awareness of danger and all of its manifestations, we now have a degenerative trait that has replaced this survival skill. This newly recognised principle is based on the complete reliance upon others, both known and unknown, to make total provision for the individuals own safety and well being, at all times. Such is the persuasiveness of this doctrine that both legislatures and the judiciary have rushed pell - mell to enshrine its tenets upon the statute books.
Recently, whilst negotiating at night, an unlit Moscow pavement near to where I live, I had cause to reflect upon the different attitudes of the executive branch of society towards its lesser members, the PUBLIC.
As I made my way along an ice-glazed footpath, eyes fixed attentively upon the immediate road surface ahead, I saw a circular, dark patch that was of slightly different shade to the other dark patches that I was traversing. Peering at the ground, I perceived that this particular patch was not something that was lying upon the surface, but rather, something that was not a part of the surface. It was actually a deficit of the surface, it was something that was not there at all; it was a man hole that was without a man hole cover. No doubt at some recent time this hole had been equipped with a covering but now that cover had most likely been misappropriated by some itinerant scrap metal trader. Upon closer examination, it was in fact, a mantrap. The exposed cavity below was about 5 foot deep and partly filled with rubbish. I reflected that of all the possible ways, in which one could sustain a compound fracture of the femur, this would probably be one of the most successful. Can you imagine such a finding on the sidewalk of New York, the pavement of London or the footpath of Sydney?
I wondered how long this hazard had been there for? How many drunken or even sober legs, had chanced upon this perilous defect? This was a well-trodden thoroughfare, not some village lane miles from the centre of the capital of Russia. This was a place where children ran and skipped, a path that laden babushkas plied from the nearby shops, an avenue used daily by countless hundreds of nearby residents. Here was this real life example of a different type of public liability. This was a classical example of a cross cultural difference in the interpretation of a long established concept.
In the west, there is this modern expectation that the citizen will be totally and constantly protected, in all places, from any form of danger, real or imagined, in any of his diverse daily or nightly pursuits. This expectation extends to all persons, from the womb and before, to the grave and beyond. In the event of some perceived deficiency of this system, the individual retains the inalienable right to resort to litigation and to seek damages and other redress, from whomsoever may be within the immediate or distant litigating vicinity.
To further assist the individual in such legal pursuits, there are available legions of clever people attired in expensive suits, who are generally referred as the 'legal profession'. These lawyer professionals are constantly seeking to assist those who have been downtrodden and wronged by the processes of life. They are utterly devoted to righting the wrongs that befall the citizen in his travels and travails, and furthermore, will do so absolutely free of charge. Free of charge that is, unless they are able to successfully pursue some matter to the point where a deluded judiciary awards pecuniary damages, then they will generously take unto themselves maybe 30% of the sum so awarded. It is already a well established and flourishing new age growth industry. This is the general area of immediate interest and concern to those executives of the insurance business who find themselves employed in the tricky fields of underwriting public liability.
In Russia, the retail branch of the legal confraternity remains poorly developed. It has not, as yet, acquired the polish and liberated style of its western contemporaries. In fact, it is still in its earliest infancy but it is destined to mature.
The notion of public liability in Russia implies a radically different sentiment to that which westerners are accustomed to. In short, the public is entrusted with its own responsibility for being liable. In Russia the individual needs to exert and exhibit his own due care and diligence in his private and public affairs. If perchance he has the personal misfortune to inadvertently discover a manhole that is coverless, and in the so doing becomes an orthopaedic casualty, then it is entirely a matter for his own attention. Similarly whilst in any public place or utility, he suffers or sustains some misfortune, then the liability is his own. There is absolutely no question of passing the blame to another party, as there is no such thing in Russia as the phenomena of 'other party negligence'. The pensioner, who falls in the frozen street and is thus rendered an immediate prospect for a surgical hip replacement, would not even contemplate bringing a suit against the Town Hall for its deficient maintenance of the public thoroughfares. The summer stroller, who impales himself upon a projecting piece of reinforcing rod in the park, would similarly consider this to be a personal misadventure beyond the interest or care of any other party at law.
Each year on the footpaths of Moscow, more than 100 pedestrians are knocked down and fatally maimed by drivers who had preferred to abandon the road for a less vehicular congested path. Pedestrians here die, or suffer derangement in winter, from sustaining the direct impact of falling stalactites of ice that detach themselves from rooftops where they have been allowed to accumulate at the sites of blocked gutters and downpipes. Others fall victim to the mania of motorists who ignore red lights at crossings, but none of the foregoing damaged would ever consider seeking a legal remedy.
So it is perhaps a refreshing novelty to discover that the Great Russian motherland is still adhering to the evolutionary concepts of Darwinism.
Principles that have stood by all of our lesser competing species over the ages, have cast the modern Russian in an entirely different mould to that which forms his western counterpart. The end product of such adherence has produced a personal self-sufficiency in the survival stakes that would astound the citizenry of so called developed places. The vocal proponents of civil libertarian style and the disciples of other laudable humanitarian movements would recoil in horror at such a state of affairs. Meanwhile those of the underwriting business enjoy a prudential immunity from the mercantile risks that bedevil the existence of their western colleagues.
This immunity from liability is however, of limited duration. The Russians are quick to emulate western ways, both good and bad. The day is approaching when the other party must start to be both liable and responsible. The next chapter could well be headed, 'The Premiums are Heading North.'
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