The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the UK’s financial conduct regulator, brought court proceedings in July 2020 to test how certain business interruption insurance policies respond to claims arising from Covid-19.
The Court has now delivered its judgement and you can find details of it here www.fca.org.uk/publication/corporate/bi-insurance-test-case-judgment.pdf.
It is widely recognised that the judgement is complex with the FCA estimating that 700 types of policies across 60 different insurers could be affected.
The current position is that insurers are reviewing the judgement before deciding whether to launch an appeal on any of the judgements made. Should they decide to do so they will seek permission to do so from the court.
If an appeal take place, the position on the cover available under a policy including any existing claims will remain unchanged by the judgement until that appeal process has concluded.
We are pleased to note that there are clearly some positives to be taken by policyholders from the judgement and we hope that decisions on whether appeals will be launched will be made without too much delay.
We eagerly await insurers’ response before we decide on the next steps we can take in support of our clients’ interests.
17.9.20