From left: Rodney Mason, Director Carplan, Gehan Siribaddana, Director Prestige Automobile, Senaka Amarasinghe, Managing Director Carmart, C Yatawara, CEO United Motors, Yoshiahi Kato, Managing Director Toyota Lanka, Ms. Renuka Ekanayaka, Deputy General Manager SLIC, Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, SLIC Managing Director, Ranjith Pandithage, CEO DIMO, Yohan De Soyza, General Manager Associated Motorways, H. A. Reuter, Chairman Prestige Automobile, Ms. Pancherine Dias, Group Financial Director Senok Automobile and Kapila Gunarathna, Director Swedish Trading Company. Not in picture Asela Lihinikaduwa, Managing Director Transmec Engineering. Pic by Gamini Munasinghe

An insurance company has paved the way for its motor insurance policy holders to have their damaged vehicles—caused by collision—repaired directly by the sole agents for each vehicle brand, freeing them from the hassle of having to find a place for repairs and spare parts and then haggling with insurance agents over the claim.

State controlled insurance giant, Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd (SLIC) entered into agreements with eleven leading agents, manufacturers and importers of motor vehicles where collision repairs and reconstructions of vehicles would be undertaken on behalf of the owners with the insurance claim directly paid into the companies.

Carplan Private Limited, Hyundai Lanka Private Limited, Carmart Limited, United Motors Lanka Private Limited, Diesel and Motor Engineering PLC, Toyota Lanka Private Limited, Associated Motorways Private Limited, Prestige Automobile Private Limited, Senok Automobiles Private Limited, Swedish Trading Private Limited and Transmec Engineering Private Limited entered into the agreement with SLIC and would now provide priority services to SLIC’s policy holders.

"This is the first time the insurance industry has taken such an initiative. After an accident, all our policy holders have to do is identify the agent or dealer and the rest would be done by SLIC," SLIC Managing Director Dr. Nalaka Godahewa said.

"Our policy holders are not only freed from the hassle of having to find a place to do the repairs, search for spare parts and then haggle over the insurance claim but everything would be taken care of and who best to reconstruct or repair a damaged vehicle than the agents or dealers for a particular brand themselves," he said.

SLIC when owned by Distilleries Company Sri Lanka PLC has introduced Formula World to take care of accident repairs. "We are replacing this with eleven other centres, the vehicle agents themselves," Dr. Godahewa said.

Last year, the Supreme Court ordered the state repay Rs. 6 billion back to Distilleries and resume control of the insurance company after the court ruled that its privatisation in 2002 was illegal.