Business Interruption due to COVID-19

brianbcknghm

I have a small picture framing business, my business insurance is supposed to cover Business Interruption.  Even though the high court has just ruled that insurance companies should pay out, my insurer has refused.  They still insist that COVID is nut covered as it is not specified on the policy, even though it did not exist when the policy was issued.  Is there anything I can do? 

Sandtree

The supreme court did not review all policy wordings or all possible options.

Have you checked if your insurer and exact wording was included in the case? If so have you checked the Supreme Court's ruling? If it isnt then its a matter of trying to draw parallels and the FCA did submit some helpful matrixes that are available online to try and help. 

If you believe you are covered after following the above then a complaint needs to be registered. Depending on the size of your business you may be able to take it to the FOS if you are unhappy with their final response to your complaint or they dont respond within 8 weeks. If you're too big for FOS protection then it'd be a letter before action followed by court 

Aretnap

The Supreme Court (and the High Court) didn't rule that "insurers have to pay out". There are a lot of types of business interruption insurance. Some don't cover disease outbreaks at all. Some do cover them, but there was disagreement over whether that means a local outbreak specifically affecting your own premises, or whether they also applied to nationwide restrictions of the type imposed due to Covid. The courts considered a number of policy wordings of the latter type and decided that SOME of them were worded such that they cover Covid style lockdown. So it will very much depend on how your own policy is worded, what it covers, and precisely what sort of disruption you experienced.

https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-releases/supreme-court-judgment-business-interruption-insurance-test-case

Insurance policies are usually written so that they list the things they do cover, not the things they don't cover. So if the policy doesn't mention Covid, or disease, or quarantine etc, then it means that those things aren't covered.

If Covid didn't exist at the time the policy was taken out then the only way it will be covered is if it falls under a more general class of things that is listed as being covered - like "disease", "pandemic“," quarantine" or "government enforced closure". 

FixitFox3

I've been told my Ombudsman can't advise until I reject my insurer's rejection letter. Is there a template letter I can use to help me with this? Their rejection was of the "not on the list" type.