Prime settles K192.4m Kalikuti Hotel claim

Prime Insurance Company Limited on Friday settled an insurance claim amounting to K192.4 million to Kalikuti Hotel in Lilongwe following fire that destroyed part of the establishment on October 31 in 2014.

The fire destroyed the offices, kitchen, bar and conference halls.

In an interview, Kalikuti Hotel manager Misoji Msumba commended Prime Insurance for settling the claim, which she said will help to kick-start rebuilding of the hotel which employed about 100 people.

“Despite having waited for the claim to be settled over a year, we are now happy that Prime Insurance has settled the claim. This is a substantial amount which will help us engage a contractor to start rebuilding the structure.

“We have lost millions since we have not been operational for over a year and all our staff lost their jobs because we could not manage to pay them,” she said.

Msumba said the new structure, to be completed within a year, will be modern.

On his part, Prime Insurance chief executive officer Albert Mbawala said the claim took long to be settled because the process to assess fire accidents is normally cumbersome and involves a lot of stakeholders.

“Investigations have to be thorough to avoid mistakes. But according to the details from Kalikuti Hotel, we were 100 percent sure that this was a genuine fire accident; hence, we have finally settled the claim even in these tough economic times,” he said.

Mbawala said by settling the claims, it shows that the insurance company has capacity to settle clients’ claim and urged people to insure their property because they are indemnified in times of accidents. n