CELTEL MALAWI PRESENTED WITH A TWO HUNDRED MILLION CHEQUE FOR FIRE CLAIM

On the afternoon of Saturday 3rd March 2007, fire occurred at the Celtel Malawi Ltd - Limbe offices.
It was later found out that the fire was in the switch room situated on the ground floor of Celtel House, Raynor Avenue, Limbe.
NICO General Insurance Company Ltd are the insurers of Celtel Malawi Ltd. They therefore came in and appointed GAB Robins international Loss Adjusters from the Republic of South Africa to review the loss and put up a report for assistance towards settlement of the loss. GAB Robins reported that damage was mainly to the switch room, cabling, plant and equipment in the switch room. The building was not badly damaged.
Apart from the loss adjuster, NICO General Insurance Company Ltd also appointed Or Manx Froneman a forensic expert from the Republic of South Africa to determine the cause of the fire He concluded that the cause was cable failure resulting from arcing of the cable conductors. Due to the extent of the damage to the cables, it was not possible to determine the exact cause of the degradation/ damage to the cables. To us as insurers, this was of no consequence, more important to us was that it was concluded that the cause of the fire could neither be attributed to arson nor foul play.

Celtel's challenge was obviously to win back clients that had moved on to join competitors. A marketing campaign had to be launched.

Restoration of services and the winning back of customers cost a substantial amount of money. This is what in insurance terms is called "INCREASED COST OF OPERATIONS". following the a fire.

"The payment of MK200.410,000 that we are making today is because Celtel were prudent enough to be insured for such an eventuality. We are therefore re-imbursing them for the increased costs they incurred"

"This does not mean the insurance claim is finalized. We are still working with Celtel to conclude their insurance claim for the damaged machinery as well as for any loss of profits arising out of this fire. When this claim is finally settled, we expect the full amount to add up to over 1.5 billion."

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