Bogus lawsuits and insurance claims costing all Australians

Congratulations, Australia – we are ever closer to becoming America, writes Kylie Lang.

Everyone’s hip pocket takes a hit with the rise of bogus complaints and insurance claims.

Congratulations Australia – we are ever closer to becoming America.

I’m not talking about the land of the free but rather the land of litigation.

For years we have scoffed, smugly now it would seem, at the predilection of Americans to sue over anything and everything.

Trip over your own foot and it’s someone else’s fault, and that poor someone better be prepared to pay handsomely for it.

Lawyers’ pockets have grown fatter on everyday misfortunes while business owners and institutions lose out. Now, in our own hospitality industry – already nursing a chronic Covid hangover – greedy opportunists are sticking the boot in.

“Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup” has reached a whole new level.

Bogus claims are being lodged with gusto, and you and I are paying more because of it.

Public liability insurance premiums are skyrocketing, with restaurants, bars and hotels reporting insurance bills are up 120 per cent on last year.

Businesses cannot absorb such increases, especially on top of rising food costs, electricity and water charge hikes and ridiculous rents.

Rob Comiskey says his company faces as many as 10 fraudulent lawsuits every year. File picture: John Gass

As The Courier-Mail reported this week, this so-called “hidden” cost is why we are being slugged $14 for a beer and not $8, $6 for a coffee and not $4.

Rob Comiskey, director of Brisbane’s Comiskey Group which owns Eatons Hills Hotel, Sandstone Point Hotel and The Doonan, says he faces 10 fraudulent lawsuits
every year.

Most are for psychological or physical injury, which sees him forking out hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. This is on top of his annual $1m public liability insurance bill.

Comiskey is looking to hire in-house lawyers to deal with the complaints. This is nuts.

Now you might not feel sorry for someone who’s running three well-known pubs, but why should people who’ve worked hard have their businesses compromised by what is essentially criminal behaviour?

If your claim is bogus, then you’re a liar and you’re committing insurance fraud.

The Insurance Council of Australia says claimants these days are expecting ever greater compensation payouts. Ka-ching!

A spokesperson for the ICA says the average injury claim is $130,000 – more than double the average financial loss claim value of $60,000 and six times the average size of property damage claims of $20,000.

The ICA wants the government to examine the civil liability (tort) reform to reduce the number of claims that can be made and decrease insurance premiums for small businesses.

Comiskey agrees, wanting changes to laws regarding what constitutes a minimum claim, and banning people from making claims for simple accidents when a venue meets legal requirements.

Without such change, bars, nightclubs and hotels will be cancelling their insurance and
hoping for the best – and inevitably facing the worst.

The only “winners” are the greedy opportunists.

Dining out is a pleasure I don’t want to have to forgo because it simply costs too much.

I don’t want the hardworking chefs who put love into their food, or the dedicated front and back of house staff who take pride in their work, to be jobless – as many became during the height of the pandemic when government mandates closed their businesses and scuppered their livelihoods.

And I don’t want the ugly minority whose moral compass has gone down the gurgler to profit.

Years ago, our society operated with greater honesty.

We left our doors unlocked, our kids played outside until dark without fear, we honoured our debts, and the vast majority of us just did the right thing.

Stealing petrol was unheard of and supermarkets would never have put security tags on steak – if you couldn’t afford something, you went without.

However, sadly, more and more people are convinced they are entitled to freebies, no matter how wrong or damaging to someone else.

We see it in our own insurance premiums, with house and contents’ policies jumping up every year, with theft a major driver.

People need to take a hard look at themselves, and realise that we are all part of the same society.

Actions always have consequences.

It is clear we need a social reset, and it can’t come soon enough.

Kylie Lang is associate editor of The Courier-Mail
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LOVE

The Black and White cabbie who couldn’t take me because his shift was finishing but didn’t want me standing in the rain so drove me to a city cab rank, for free. Random acts of kindness always count.

LOATHE

The sheer lunacy of fining the Queensland Police Service $425,000 for failing to properly train its members in the use of tyre spikes. This is merely a transfer of funds from one government department to another.