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On Monday, Puerto Rico’s Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s decision that dismissed the defense claims made by the Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples (CSM) regarding the justification for applying depreciation to replacement parts during vehicle repairs.
“For more than ten years, CSM’s policy of automatically applying depreciation to replacement parts has resulted in millions of dollars being deducted from payments to policyholders,” stated Francisco Colón Ramírez, an attorney representing the plaintiffs, in a written declaration. “These deductions have obliged consumers to pay for expenses that their insurance was meant to cover, thereby undermining the fundamental purpose of insurance agreements.”
The court remarked that there is no legal foundation for CSM’s practices and that the insurer failed to establish their legality. This ruling could benefit thousands of policyholders should the lawsuit be approved as a class action by the Court of First Instance, thus allowing affected consumers to assert their rights.
CSM contended that accepting liability could jeopardize its financial health, while Colón Ramírez argued that “the role of the courts is to render justice, not to shield entities from the repercussions of their own wrongful actions.”
The plaintiffs are persisting in their legal efforts to put an end to the practice, which the lawyer claims is unwarranted and against industry norms in the United States.
