Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Small businesses will have to wait until next year before they see a penny of Covid business interruption insurance payouts.
This is despite a High Court ruling last month, siding with small businesses on many points when it came to whether insurers should honour business interruption insurance which specifically covered pandemics.
The High Court ruled on 21 sample insurance contracts in a test case designed to clear up disputes over whether insurers should pay up.
>See also: Covid expected to cost small businesses £69bn
The eight insurers involved in the High Court ruling have said not to pressure from the financial regulator to settle insurance payouts following the court ruling.
Instead, they will appeal where the High Court sided with watchdog the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) over wordings in the policies.
Up to 370,000 businesses will be affected by the outcome.
The FCA said: “We had hoped to reach an agreement with the insurers by today [Wednesday] on the interpretation of some important elements of the judgment affecting which small businesses get paid and how much. This would have allowed for faster pay-out for policyholders with eligible claims.”
The nub of the issue is that even when small businesses took out