Gratitude for support

The SUR received a letter from a widow of a motorman who died during his work on board of the m/v “Uran”.

“Thanking to your efforts my problem has been solved in my favour, and finally I was paid the insurance compensation”, says the letter addressed to Union lawyer, Mr.Yury Pronin.

This family from the Russian Far East came to grief in 2008. The housefather was a healthy man when he left for China, the motor vessel’s routine point of destination. The man had been working in a good way complaining of nothing but then he started to lose his weight rapidly. The motorman’s wife, who was a member of the same crew, stayed near her husband around the clock. But in a few days this strong man of a bit more than fifty died when the vessel was on the way from Qinhuangdao to Nantong.

The certificate of death, issued by Chinese forensic experts and policemen, did not contain an exact diagnosis. It only said the seafarer died in consequence of a disease, which was not specified, however. In a few days the seafarer’s body and documentation concerned were delivered to Vanino (Khabarovsk Krai), where the diseased seafarer was buried. In a month the widow applied to the insurance company to receive compensation but suddenly was faced by unexpected problems.

“From the very beginning the insurance company was delaying the payment”, says Mrs.Tatiana Ivaschhenko, the widow of the seafarer.

“They would not give us a full list of required documents in spite of my repeated requests.  Every time I visited their office they would say there’s one more document I was to submit. This game was going on until I turned for support to the Seafarers’ Union of Russia”.

The insurers would play for time. First they said the death could result from some chronic disease. Then they noticed an error in translation of the death certificate. And at long last they tried to take the case to a Moscow court though it was evident that the poor woman wouldn’t be able to cover travel expenses.

Anyhow, the widow got help from the Seafarers Union of Russia. From the Russian Far East to Moscow she could rely on its assistance. In Moscow, after a brilliant defense by a SUR lawyer, the right of Tatiana Ivashenko for compensation has been successfully proved.

“I would like to wish, from the bottom of my heart, good luck and patience both to you and your team in your hard work, so that you could go on supporting people in trouble”, – wrote the widow in her letter to the SUR lawyers.