Business Interruption Insurance claims

[foliedouce]

Just wondering is anyone has had any luck claiming on this due to COVID

Our broker is saying it's just for flood / fire etc but I don't know if he's just fobbing us off.

We've had a down turn of B2B business as a result of COVID and I'd like to claim if it's at all possible.

Many thanks

[warp9]

Check your policy wording as not all policies are the same. From what I have seen (I work in the industry, but a different area) insurers are robustly defending any CV19 claims for lost income.

[foliedouce]

warp9 said:

Check your policy wording as not all policies are the same. From what I have seen (I work in the industry, but a different area) insurers are robustly defending any CV19 claims for lost income.

Yep, that's the impression I'm getting!

[Dixy]

For 27 years they have quite happily taken money and said they cover business interruption. It covers Contagious or infectious human disease. It would seem it does not cover them paying out

[foliedouce]

Just got this from the broker, looks like they are looking at a technical way of avoiding the claim. In my mind the public authority was the Government when we were all told to work from home.

"Thanks for your email advising you would like to submit a business interruption claim for loss of business due to Covid-19.

As you were advised there is a court hearing due to take place towards the end of July in which a number of Hiscox’s and other insurers policy wordings are going to be reviewed by high court judges to see if their stance of declining these claims is a fair one. Until then we would expect your claim to be repudiated by Hiscox.

However to enable them to consider the matter please provide the following information

1. Not including the general closure and lockdown instructions issued by the Government on Friday 20th and Monday 23rd March, has a public authority specifically instructed you to not use your business premises as a result of a case of Coronavirus at/in the vicinity of the business premises?

2. If so how and when was this order communicated?

3. Has the government ordered the business premises to close in the instructions issued on Friday 20th and Monday 23rd March?

4.Have any events been unavoidable postponed, abandoned or cancelled? If so, please describe the event, and what is the sum of any unrecoverable costs/expenses you have incurred?

Please also provide details of your takings from this time last year compared to the period of lockdown this year."

[chippy348]

foliedouce said:

Just got this from the broker, looks like they are looking at a technical way of avoiding the claim. In my mind the public authority was the Government when we were all told to work from home.

"Thanks for your email advising you would like to submit a business interruption claim for loss of business due to Covid-19.

As you were advised there is a court hearing due to take place towards the end of July in which a number of Hiscox’s and other insurers policy wordings are going to be reviewed by high court judges to see if their stance of declining these claims is a fair one. Until then we would expect your claim to be repudiated by Hiscox.

However to enable them to consider the matter please provide the following information

1. Not including the general closure and lockdown instructions issued by the Government on Friday 20th and Monday 23rd March, has a public authority specifically instructed you to not use your business premises as a result of a case of Coronavirus at/in the vicinity of the business premises?

2. If so how and when was this order communicated?

3. Has the government ordered the business premises to close in the instructions issued on Friday 20th and Monday 23rd March?

4.Have any events been unavoidable postponed, abandoned or cancelled? If so, please describe the event, and what is the sum of any unrecoverable costs/expenses you have incurred?

Please also provide details of your takings from this time last year compared to the period of lockdown this year."

That is just a Farce, you can see they are clearly trying to get out of helping a business out in anyway shape or form.

This kind of thing makes me mad

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

Dixy said:

For 27 years they have quite happily taken money and said they cover business interruption. It covers Contagious or infectious human disease. It would seem it does not cover them paying out

It's a bugger, but (usually) the contagion needs to be within the business.

[foliedouce]

I'm going to try and claim and see what happens at this court case

One of my businesses is 25% down and the other 70% down, it's got to be worth a try even if they say no

[2 sMoKiN bArReLs]

foliedouce said:

I'm going to try and claim and see what happens at this court case

One of my businesses is 25% down and the other 70% down, it's got to be worth a try even if they say no

Costs nothing to have a go.

I've had some success in the past with "pushing the limit" claims.

[Insurancejon]

I’d hang on for a an outcome from the FCA test cases

https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/business-interruption...

Basically they are taking all the possible wording/scenarios to court and the insurers will have to abide by the ruling

These start on July the 15th

However, the majority of policies don’t have much chance

If you want a free second option, drop me a pm and I’ll read your policy for you.

One thing to ponder is, if the insurance industry was expected to cover this, then the whole industry would be bankrupt and it would be pence in the pound time. It one be literally one industry trying to financially support the annual GDP of the U.K.

Or conversely, premiums would have been so high no one would buy anything other than legally required insurance

[Dixy]

Future handing down of judgment
The court has stated that judgment will be handed down at 10:30am on Tuesday 15 September 2020.

[Insurancejon]

Dixy said:

Future handing down of judgment
The court has stated that judgment will be handed down at 10:30am on Tuesday 15 September 2020.

^^^^^^^^^this. Wait until the judgements come down so you can frame your claim to fit the best possible scenario and your policy wording

However, there are some (most) policy wordings that simply do not cover it

I'm more than happy to review it for you to give you my thoughts on it, and explain in plain English why

[Dromedary66]

Insurancejon said:

Or conversely, premiums would have been so high no one would buy anything other than legally required insurance

Don't most small business only go for that anyway, as people rightly know it is barely worth the paper it is cryptically written on. Absolutely disgusting industry.

[Insurancejon]

Dromedary66 said:

Insurancejon said:

Or conversely, premiums would have been so high no one would buy anything other than legally required insurance

Don't most small business only go for that anyway, as people rightly know it is barely worth the paper it is cryptically written on. Absolutely disgusting industry.

no they don't, most small businesses buy small business insurance packages, which cover the majority of the common things they face.

Yes I agree, certain insurers have handled this covid situation badly, but the majority have excluded it...along with war, terrorism and other issues which are simply too big to cover.

You have to remember, insurance is basically a pool of money that everyone throws into, and it pays the claims. There has to be enough money in the pot to pay the claims. Ergo if the pot needed to be the size of the Govt £350bn plus propping up of the economy, the premiums would be insane, and be on top of what everyone is paying for the rest of the cover

[Dixy]

My policy wording is the same as the test case wording, I have been paying my premium each year for 28 years for that cover. The fact that when they drafted it they did not think to exclude world or even national pandemic is their fault. They have used the "policy excludes" excuse for ever to wriggle out of paying, those that live by the sword die by it.

I am not holding my breath.

[TwigtheWonderkid]

The basic business interruption cover provided by insurers is purely cover for interruption following a materiel damage claim on the policy. So B.I. following a fire or break in, where you're making a claim for the main event. 95% of people with B.I. cover have this cover so there's no way Covid would be covered and really the punter is being a bit cheeky asking.

It's the small number of punters with extended B.I. cover that may have a case, although as said above, insurance cannot survive if they cover stuff that everyone can claim on at the same time, hence the exclusion of stuff like war and nationwide things like Covid. Extended B.I. would normally cover things like denial of access, say a gas leak where they shut the road for 3 weeks to dig it up, and other stuff like that.

We all know how insurance works, everyone pays in a relatively small amount of money so a few people can claim a large amount of money. If everyone pays in a small amount of money so everyone can claim a large amount of money, that's not a viable business proposition.

[h0b0]

Century 21 has been forced to close as their insurance are not covering Covid. For those unfamiliar, Century 21 is a small chain of department stores with the most famous one being opposite ground zero in NYC. When the towers came down, the insurance company covered them so they assumed they would be covered now.

[williaa68]

Test case judgment next week I believe...

[db10]

I was talking to the owner of a hotel in Thailand that was wiped out by the tsunami and surprisingly the rebuild cost was covered by insurance. He said he was lucky as he took max cover for every thing he could

[mjcneat]

Ruled in favour of the FCA, suspect it will be appealed by insurers.