In M/s. Capri Global Capital Ltd. v. United India Insurance Co. Ltd., decided by the NCDRC on 22 July 2026, a non-banking finance company claimed $100,000 in legal expenses incurred defending its directors against a CBI prosecution. The directors were ultimately discharged in 2017. The expenses were real, supported by bank transfers and payment vouchers. The policy explicitly covered criminal prosecution costs. The claim was still rejected in full.
The reason was simple. The company sent its first intimation to the insurer on 3 June 2011, more than fourteen months after the policy had expired. No notice was given during the policy period. No consent was sought before engaging lawyers. The insurer had been given no opportunity to manage or participate in the defence at any stage. The NCDRC held that a D&O policy is not a reimbursement arrangement that can be invoked after the incident happened. The notification requirement exists so the insurer can exercise its right to take over and conduct the defence.
An intimation sent after policy expiry, with all expenses already incurred, extinguishes that right entirely. The company argued that the directors were in judicial custody and documents had been seized by the CBI. The Commission was not persuaded: not every person in the company was behind bars, and the directors were clearly communicating with their lawyers throughout.
So Oceanus went after a different policy. It had Mortgagees’ Interest Insurance, which was designed to protect the lender’s financial interest in the ship. Oceanus claimed $3.6 million. Lloyd’s denied the claim. The dispute eventually reached the English Court of Appeal. The court looked at what the MII policy was actually protecting. Oceanus’s loss was the loss of its security interest in the ship.
And that loss came from a chain of events the MII policy was designed to cover: The ship was damaged by a mine and Oceanus lost the ship which was backing its loan. The court also found that the forged document did not change the result. Why? Because even without the dishonesty, the ship would still have travelled to Ukraine and, on the facts found by the court, the mine strike might have happened. So the Court of Appeal upheld Oceanus’s claim of $3.6 Mn.
Global non-life insurance premiums are forecast to grow by just 0.6% in real terms in 2026, according to the Swiss Re Institute. This would represent the cyclical low for global non-life premium growth, significantly below the 3.6% average annual growth recorded during 2015–2024.
