3 June 2010 - Pensioner fights software and insurance giants on behalf of her son
Plucky Norfolk grandmother Audrey Hahn, 73, is taking on American software giant Informatica and insurance colossus Canada Life on behalf of her late son Jonathan Ruangrua.
Mr Ruangrua died in February 2007, one month before his 43 birthday. His employment contract with Informatica Software of Maidenhead included death in service benefits of four times his annual salary, payable through the company’s insurer Canada Life.
For the past three years, Mrs Hahn of Caister-on-Sea has been acting as executrix of her son’s estate. As such she has been fighting these two giants to get justice for herself and Mr Ruangrua’s Thai-born widow Suzie, who has been left destitute. The claim now exceeds £350,000, to include interest and unpaid Permanent Health Insurance (PHI) benefits.
The case will now be heard in the High Court after November 2010.
The employers and insurers insist payment is discretionary but Mrs Hahn’s solicitor, Tony Bertin of Employment Relations Solicitors, said: “There is an important point of legal principle at stake. I would be very worried if members of my family depended on the whims of employers and their insurers to receive what they expect to receive. This was a large group scheme supposedly covering all persons actively employed, which Jonathan Ruangrua was.”
Informatica is the world number independent provider of data integration software. Mr Ruangrua, a former army engineer, joined the company in March 2005 at its UK headquarters in Maidenhead, on a salary of £65,000.
He was diagnosed with a neurological condition affecting his eyesight in June 2006. When he first went on sick leave the previous September, Informatica paid him his full normal salary for 13 weeks, then 75% of his normal wages (under the Canada Life PHI scheme) until August 2006. Canada Life then stopped payments until his death in February 2007.
Informatica had also contracted to pay through its insurer Canada Life four times the annual salary as life insurance. Mr Bertin said: “Canada Life did not require any evidence of insurability and Mr Ruangrua was accepted as an eligible member of the scheme. Informatica informed Canada Life that it was not its policy to carry out any pre-employment medical checks. The company says his previous problems with alcohol should have been disclosed. In the absence of any screening process being required by either the company or the insurer, we struggle to accept this.
“Canada Life’s position is that Informatica was negligent in not investigating Mr Ruangrua’s medical history and in employing him at all. But Canada Life is not entitled to decline the claim and is in breach of contract.”
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Inquiries
Tony Bertin, Employment Relations Solicitors 01303 840001 tonybertin@employment-relations.co.uk
Anne Leva, Employment Relations Solicitors 01303 840001 Anne@employment-relations.co.uk
www.employement-relations.co.uk
