Insurance claim helps see off 'apartheid relic'

An apartheid relic that effectively regarded domestic workers as nonpersons who could not be trusted has been removed from an insurance policy - thanks to a thieving handyman.

The clause - "the presence of a domestic worker on the property does not constitute occupation even if they are living in any of the outbuildings or in their domestic quarters" - has been removed after a claim to insurance company Hollard by a Cape Town man was rejected and he engaged a legal firm to appeal the outcome.

Raymond Cohen made the claim after the theft of laptops, a camera, jewellery and other items from his Parklands home.    

It's standard practice for insurers to insist that homeowners alarm their homes when the property is unoccupied, but the fact that Hollard's policy singled out domestic workers as not being considered "occupiers" didn't sit well with a small legal firm, Van Rensburg & Co of Bergvliet.

Legal consultant Sheila Camerer - a former National Party deputy minister and a DA MP - called it "inherently racist and sexist" as more than 90% of domestic workers in South Africa are black women. "What that endorsement, an overhang from the apartheid era, is saying is that they are nonpersons or that they can't be trusted," she told the ombudsman for short-term insurance.

story_article_left1

Cohen had left a handyman - whom he'd regularly hired to do odd jobs - at his unlocked, unarmed property while he took his wife to the airport.

"I didn't think I had a choice," Cohen said. "I knew and trusted him. How could I deny him access to the tools in the garage, and the toilet inside the house while I was out?"

But on Cohen's return, the handyman had gone and the valuables were missing.

Rejecting the claim, Hollard relied on its "alarm warranty endorsement" clause, saying it would not be liable for loss by theft while the residence was unoccupied, unless it was alarmed, with armed response.

That was followed by the domestic worker clause. The ombudsman initially sided with the insurer.

Appealing that decision, Camerer argued that had the handyman been a white Afrikaner, the insurer would not have dared call him a domestic worker.

A senior assistant ombudsman said regardless of whether or not the handyman fitted the description of a domestic worker, the fact that he didn't usually live on the property meant Cohen was in breach of his policy by not alarming the house when he left. Hence the rejection of the claim was not overturned.

However, the ombudsman said Hollard's domestic worker clause was indeed "contrary to public policy" and advised the attorneys to approach the courts to have it set aside.

Ombudsman Deanne Wood confirmed that her office had also raised the "domestic worker" issue with Hollard.

The company then settled Cohen's claim, "on an ex gratia basis".

Hollard spokesman Warwick Bloom said the insurer had been in the process of removing the "domestic worker" clause from its policies but that some of its "outsourced administrators" still included it.

"The clause had nothing to do with apartheid or race or the nature of any group of people. It was simply a question of regarding a dwelling as unoccupied for the purposes of insurance cover if the only person or people on the premises did not necessarily have access to that dwelling, or did not go into that dwelling on a daily basis."

Bloom said the "someone living on the property" scenario today applied as much to "boarders, tenants and others".

Wood advised consumers to check their policy wordings on the issue of what is considered "unoccupied".