An insurer has been ordered to reverse its wear and tear decision on a damaged crop sprayer after its expert’s report was labelled “speculative at best”.

Elders Insurance denied a claim for $212,640 of repairs to the machine’s boom spray – which was damaged when it was crashed into another piece of farm equipment – because its engineer found “evidence of a progressing fatigue fracture”.

The engineer said the fracture “has been present for some time as there are ‘beach marks’ which indicate the progression of the fracture. Fractures of this profile take millions of cycles to develop, gradually reducing the cross-sectional area until failure occurs.”

The insurer argued this, and not the accident impact, was the key cause of the damage, which included a snapped “top paralift arm”. It rejected the claim under its wear and tear exclusion.

But the claimant denied there was a long-term problem and said the crash was the sole cause of damage.

It said the boom spray was only two years old at the time of the accident, which was the first it had been involved in.

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The machine had a full service history and had undergone regular maintenance by the authorised seller.

The claimant noted the insurer’s engineer had not reviewed the service history.

In a dispute ruling, an Australian Financial Complaints Authority adjudicator says they “place little weight on the conclusion from [the engineer] that the damage was progressive”.

The engineer “did not inspect the vehicle or review the service history for the boom spray [and] merely relied on photographs of the boom spray, taken three weeks after the incident”. The expert failed to show they had undertaken all the checks required for a full “fracture analysis”.

The report “is speculative at best in relation to the damage”, AFCA says.

“The insurer also says a contributing factor was the [spray] chemicals that had penetrated the fine cracks, causing corrosion,” the adjudicator added. “However, it has not provided any evidence in support of this claim.

“The complainant has provided a photograph of the fracture at the time of the incident. There is no evidence of rust in this photograph.”

AFCA says the damage was accidental and covered under the insured’s commercial motor policy. See the ruling here.

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