In Lauritano v. American Fid. Fire Ins. Co. (3 AD2d 564 [1st Dept 1957]) the injured plaintiff obtained a default judgment against Joseph Forzano and S. S. D. Trucking Corp. When the judgment remained uncollected, plaintiff sued directly their automobile liability insurers. On appeal, the First Department noted that S. S. D. gave no notice of the accident to its insurers. Plaintiff, "unaware and unadvised of the fact that the vehicle had been rented to S. S. D., did not himself notify S. S. D.'s insurers of the accident and of his claim until June 12, 1953," 13 months after the accident. The trial court held the delay to be excessive and dismissed the complaint. At one time, the liability insurance policy was regarded as the concern only of the insured and his insurer, as exclusive parties to the contract. Any act or omission by the insured which would have released his insurer from liability would inevitably have precluded recovery by those whose claims against the insurer were wholly derivative. However, the Legislature, recognizing that an injured party, while not privy to the insurance contract, had a genuine interest in it and should be enabled to invoke its protection, enacted section 109 of the Insurance Law, forerunner of the present section 167, to create, as its heading indicates, an independent right of the injured person to proceed directly against the liability insurer (L. 1917, ch. 524). Successive amendments have profoundly altered what was once commonly accepted--that the liability policy existed solely for the protection of the insured. Today the injured party is no longer wholly dependent upon the diligence and conscientiousness of the person who caused him injury. The statute having granted the injured person an independent right to give notice and to recover thereafter, he is not to be charged vicariously with the insured's delay. When the injured party has pursued his rights with as much diligence "as was reasonably possible" the statute shifts the risk of the insured's delay to the compensated risk-taker who can initially accept or reject those for whom it will bear such risks. The First Department found that based on the facts available to the injured plaintiff, his notice given to S. S. D.'s liability insurers was given as soon as it was reasonably possible for him to do so. Thus, the dismissal against the insurers was reversed and judgment entered for the plaintiff.