Insurance surveyor categories: express eligibility notes permit category 'A' surveyors to operate within overlapping financial limits.

Regulation 14(3) of the Insurance Surveyors and Loss Assessors Regulations, 2000 was read with the relevant circular notes to define overlapping operating limits among surveyor categories. The express eligibility notes showed that category 'A' surveyors could take work within the financial limits associated with category 'B', while the reverse was excluded, and the revised circular also allowed category 'A' surveyors to handle claims above the category 'C' ceiling. On that construction, the restriction complained of could not stand, and category 'A' surveyors remained entitled to operate within the covered financial band.

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Issues: Whether the circulars regulating insurance surveyors and loss assessors barred category 'A' surveyors from operating within the financial limits assigned to category 'B' surveyors, and whether they were entitled to undertake surveys beyond the limits reserved for category 'C' surveyors.

Analysis: Regulation 14(3) of the Insurance Surveyors and Loss Assessors (Licensing, Professional Requirements and Code of Conduct) Regulations, 2000 provided for categorisation of surveyors and loss assessors by reference to departments of insurance business and financial limits. The notes appended to the circular dated 11-9-2001 made it clear that category 'A' surveyors were eligible for jobs falling within the limits of category 'B', while category 'B' surveyors were eligible for jobs within the limits of category 'C'; the reverse was excluded. The revised circular reinforced the same structure by enhancing the monetary thresholds and expressly permitting category 'A' surveyors to undertake surveys in claims above the category 'C' ceiling, while category 'A' remained the only category entitled to operate exclusively above the higher threshold. On that construction, the complained-of restriction did not survive.

Conclusion: Category 'A' surveyors and loss assessors were entitled to operate within the financial limits of category 'B' so long as the claims were above the limit reserved for category 'C' surveyors, and the circulars could not be read as excluding them from that field.

Final Conclusion: The regulatory circulars were construed as permitting category 'A' surveyors to function within the overlapping field above the category 'C' limit, and the writ petitions succeeded to that extent.

Ratio Decidendi: A regulatory categorisation circular must be read according to its express eligibility notes, and where the language shows overlapping operational limits, the higher category remains entitled to function within the lower category's field except where expressly excluded.

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