Robison & Co

The following information may help you prevent a breach of your insurance cover.

Government restrictions mean many businesses have closed temporarily which can result in buildings currently being left unoccupied.

Most insurance policies have unoccupied / security conditions and if your property/ies were unoccupied prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, then the usual security conditions required by their insurer are the same as before. These conditions may include among other things weekly visits, removal of combustible waste, switching off gas, water and electricity and letterboxes sealed.

Please refer to your policy wordings for the exact requirements defined by your insurer.

For premises that have become unoccupied during the COVID-19 outbreak due to Government restrictions, a number of insurers are relaxing their policy requirements for the time being. During this period, insurers will continue to review their position.

Please contact us immediately if:

• The outbreak has left you unable to comply with the policy requirements, as insurers need to be informed and any arrangement with insurers to relax or vary the requirements needs to be agreed in writing.

This pandemic has caused implications on different classes of insurance, which may have an impact depending on the type of policy you have. To keep up to date with information on the COVID-19 pandemic and potential impact on you please stay in touch with your account executive and regularly drop in to our website for updates.

POLICY WORDINGS AND CLAIMS

Whilst working hard to support you through the COVID-19 crisis – to help you weather the storm and continue to deliver for you, our clients, (many of whom we know will be facing severe disruption) we have received a large number of enquiries from clients on their insurance arrangements and cover.

Independent Legal Advice: COVID-19 Policy Wording Review

Clients need our support and guidance, which is why, in partnership with our Network provider, Bluefin Network, we have been able to engage with Fenchurch Law – a City of London law firm specialising in insurance – to get an independent, legal opinion on a wide range of policy wordings on your behalf. Bluefin are working with Fenchurch Law to review policy wordings across 92 insurance providers and more than 1,000 products to:

• Determine what cover attaches to each in respect of COVID-19 related claims, mainly under the sections of Business Interruption, Denial of Access, Notifiable Disease or Public Authority wordings.
• Assess the likelihood of success in the event clients wish to challenge declined claims.

Given the scale of this work, the review is being prioritised according to the customer volume per insurer – starting with those insurers with the most clients on cover. Please keep a look out for further updates and information as we will be updating progress regularly.

Case-by-case Legal Support

In the meantime, we understand that some clients are suffering declined claims and may need urgent support. So, to further assist Bluefin Network members, Fenchurch Law will continue to assess declined claims on a case-by-case basis – where the claimant falls outside of the Financial Ombudsman Service qualifying criteria¹.

Fenchurch Law will review the policy wording and may be appointed to engage with the insurer on the policyholder’s behalf if there are grounds to raise a challenge. However, costs incurred for doing so will fall outside of Legal Review and will be at the client’s expense.

¹FOS qualifying criteria: – SME with an annual turnover less than £6.5 million and employing fewer than 50 people or with a balance sheet total less than £5 million at time of the complaint

Cyber security is paramount as COVID-19 has encouraged more homeworking. Unfortunately this can lead to more attacks. Discover the cyber recommendations for remote working in this useful document from Aviva.

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