Insurance stoush over Rock Centre injury claim headed to court

A WOMAN who says she was injured when a climber fell on her head at Darwin’s Rock Centre is taking legal action after she says the business stonewalled her insurance claim

A woman who says she was injured when a climber fell on her head at Darwin’s Rock Centre is taking legal action after she says the business stonewalled her insurance claim. Picture: AP

A WOMAN who says she was injured when a climber fell on her head at Darwin’s Rock Centre is taking legal action after she says the business stonewalled her insurance claim.

The woman, who did not wish to be named, said she had been diagnosed with a mild brain injury following the incident in August last year.

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But when she contacted the business’s director to ask for details of its public liability insurer so she could lodge a claim, she says she refused to hand them over.

“I think I’ve contacted them upwards of 20 times and got a response perhaps five times and when I have got a response they have not answered the questions that I’ve asked,” she said. “It’s not up to her to decide whether or not she’s liable, it’s up to the insurer.

“They don’t have to admit liability, they have to give me their insurance details so I can have liability assessed by someone who doesn’t have a conflict of interest.”

In response, the director accused the woman of breaking the gym’s rules and causing the accident herself, meaning there was no claim available to her.

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“Everybody who knows and goes into our climbing gym knows you don’t stand underneath a climber, the climbers are number one in our gym, those are the people we look after and you don’t go and stand underneath one,” she said.

“You can’t claim on something where you’ve hurt yourself, if you do the wrong thing, you’ve done the wrong thing, otherwise everybody would be deliberately feigning injuries and causing themselves harm just to be able to claim on something that was their own fault.”

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The director said she had done nothing wrong but was happy to speak to the woman, saying if a claim was genuine “absolutely we’d be passing it on and letting our insurance deal with it”.

But the woman said the belay points were too close together and she was never told not to stand where she was, maintaining it was the insurer’s call as to whether the claim was valid.