FCA updates Covid data for BI insurance guidance

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published an alert for policyholders to use the latest data in its final guidance for policyholders to make business interruption claims.

Coronavirus data from Imperial College London underpins the final guidance paper put out by the FCA on 3 March, following the regulator’s test case outcome handed down by the Supreme Court in January.

“Final guidance: Business interruption insurance test case - proving the presence of coronavirus (Covid-19)” sets out the types of evidence and methodologies for policyholders to use when proving the presence of the virus in a particular area around their premises.

However, the data used for the guidance are evolving with the Covid-19 pandemic, hence the regulator’s efforts to keep its guidance up-to-date. Imperial College issued an update to its data on 18 March 2021.

The FCA said: “We have published this data as it is the most up to date and accurate publication for a policyholder to use. If you have used the previous version we recommend you use the latest version of the data.

This FCA’s guidance aims to help BI policyholders in the claims process when policy wordings require the policyholder to prove the presence of a disease within a particular area before the policy will respond.

The document is designed to provide clarity for all parties involved in BI insurance, the regulator noted, primarily for policyholders, but also intermediaries and insurers, including managing agents at Lloyd’s.

The document was put together after a consultation period and follows the FCA’s release on 29 January of a “Policy Checker” document designed, since the regulator’s test case win, to identify whether a policy would cover a Covid-19 BI claim, as well as a document answering policyholders’ “Frequently Asked Questions” published at the same time.

“The FCA has stepped up and done a great job on this, doing everything they said they would when they would,” says Julia Graham, CEO of Airmic. “Communication has been timely and made as simple as possible for policyholders to enable valid claim payments to be made as early as possible, with the website consistently updated. The supervisor has provided an extremely helpful service to policyholders.”