During the COVID pandemic, many businesses such as hospitality businesses were forced to cease operating because of the risk of disease transmission. And many of those businesses had business interruption insurance policies that they wondered if they could claim on. The majority of such policies were only for business interruptions associated with insured events such as a fire or flood. But some of those policies had wording that seemed to indicate that they might be covered for the business interruptions triggered by COVID. Some firms reasoned that the wording hadn’t been designed to be triggered by COVID, the proper test was a legal test that would be best decided by a court of law. Jonathan led an initiative for the FCA to work collaboratively with the insurance industry to collect sample wordings and identify the issues requiring clarification and take test cases to the Courts. The alternative would have been to leave it to a process of litigation that might last many years which would not have been helpful to businesses struggling to survive or insurance companies looking for clarity. The case was heard quickly in both the High Court and Supreme Court with clarity being provided and claims settled quickly.
