Whether a death due to malaria occasioned by a mosquito bite in Mozambique, constituted a death due to an accident? On Tuesday i.e. 26th March 2019, the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the matter titled as “The Branch Manager, National Insurance Co. versus Smt. Mousmi Bhattacharjee & Others, Civil Appeal No.
2614 of 2019 has held that in a policy of insurance which covers death due to an accident, the peril insured against is an accident: an untoward happening or occurrence which is unforeseen and unexpected in the normal course of human events. The death of the insured in the present case was caused by encephalitis malaria and insured was based in Mozambique which malaria-prone area as per WHO. Thus, the illness of encephalitis malaria through a mosquito bite cannot be considered as an accident. It was neither unexpected nor unforeseen. It was not a peril insured against in the policy of…
