Commercial and Chancery barrister, Georgina Thompson has written an article in The Business Post discussing FCA v Arch Insurance (UK) and others. This comes shortly after the free webinar given by her, Nick Pointon and Daniel Soar, which can be found here.

Georgie writes:

The case of Financial Conduct Authority v Arch Insurance (UK) Ltd and others [2021] UKSC 1 (“FCA v Arch”) is a seminal decision of the Supreme Court for those whose businesses have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and find themselves facing difficulties claiming under their business interruption insurance policies. The decision also provides clarity for insurers and insurance intermediaries (including brokers) who will be expected to comply with their regulatory obligations when dealing with business interruption claims.

The FCA worked alongside eight insurers in bringing a test case before the courts seeking declarations as to the construction of a representative sample of clauses commonly found in business interruption insurance policies. These included disease clauses, hybrid clauses, prevention of access clauses and trends clauses. The Supreme Court found largely in favour of the FCA, and consequently the policyholders, on a number of key issues. It is thought that approximately 370,000 policyholders will be directly impacted by the Supreme Court’s decision.

Read the full article here on page 13.