By Louis Goss
Survivors of a plane crash that killed 71 people have filed a High Court lawsuit against insurers Aon and Tokio Marine Kiln seeking $844m in compensation over the 2016 disaster that caused the deaths of 19 members of Brazil’s Chapecoense football team.
Victims of the 2016 LaMia crash that killed almost all of the 77 people on board, have filed a High Court lawsuit against the insurers, seeking to overturn an injunction blocking the them from pursuing the insurance brokers for compensation through US courts.
The 2016 incident saw a flight chartered by the Chapecoense professional football crash during a trip from Bolivia to Colombia, after the LaMia airlines flight ran out of fuel.
Survivors of the crash subsequently pursued a campaign of litigation seeking $844m in damages from airline operators LaMia and Kite Air through Miami’s courts.
The insurers previously said they would not pay out on a policy provided to LaMia, over claims the airline had failed to pay the second instalment of its premium on the $25m policy and that it had acted negligently by failing to refuel the plane.
In 2019, the insurers offered victims’ families $225,000 in compensation each as a gesture of goodwill, in a deal that 23 family members accepted.
Victims of the plane crash are now seeking to overturn a High Court injunction blocking them from pursuing litigation against the insurers in US courts, with a view to collecting the full $844m sum. The High Court lawsuit came after victims filed a motion to add the insurers to the original Florida claim.
The insurers are seeking to argue the $844m Florida settlement is unreasonable, considering the original policy was worth just $25m.
They are also claiming they have no connection to Florida, apart from the fact the original claim against the airliners was filed there, and that any case should be heard in British courts.
Lawyers acting on behalf of the victims have been approached by City A.M. for comment. Aon and Tokio Marine Kiln declined to comment.
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