7:18 am, January 16, 2021
Financial Conduct Authority boss Sheldon Mills has urged to insurers to ‘move quickly’ to pay claims for business interruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Supreme Court ruled that car dealers’ policies ‘will provide cover’ in a landmark £1.2bn case over after an appeal by the FCA on Friday.
Mills, the FCA’s executive director of consumers and competition, said the Supreme Court’s judgment ‘decisively removes many of the roadblocks to claims by policyholders’.
He called on insurers to ‘move quickly to pay claims that the judgment says should be paid, making interim payments wherever possible’.
Car dealers have now been urged to ‘contact their brokers immediately’ as they may be able to successfully claim.
The City watchdog last year brought the test case over the wording of business interruption insurance policies, which some insurers argued did not cover the Covid-19 pandemic.
In April, many car dealers found they were unable to claim on their policies when they were forced to shut by Covid restrictions as insurers claimed the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t covered.
Many had specific clauses that appeared to cover the impact of Covid under ‘infectious/notifiable diseases’ but yet they were still denied.
In September, the High Court ruled on several ‘lead’ insurance policies issued by eight separate insurers largely in favour of the FCA.
The regulator said the judgment paved the way for many insurance policies to pay out on Covid-19 business interruption claims.
Six of the insurers – Arch, Argenta, Hiscox, MS Amlin, QBE and RSA – appealed against aspects of the High Court’s ruling, as did the Hiscox Action Group, which represents around 400 businesses insured by Hiscox.
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