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James Dalton: ‘The crisis has demonstrated pandemic insurance can’t be provided by the insurance market alone...it needs support from government’


Insurers have lessons to learn from Covid – ABI


Association’s James Dalton defends sector’s response to crisis. Ian Taylor reports


The costs of the Covid crisis are already enormous but it’s too early to draw many lessons, says James Dalton, general insurance policy director at the Association of British Insurers (ABI). Dalton will address Abta’s Travel


Convention on October 14 on the implications of Covid-19 for insurance. Like everyone, he said: “The


insurance industry continues to live through the crisis. “The industry will have lessons to


learn, but we’re in the middle of the pandemic. None of us knows what


40 8 OCTOBER 2020


water remains to flow under the bridge.” He noted insurers’ immediate


response was “nervousness”, saying: “People pulled out of the market, refused to issue new business. “Since then, people have come


back in and are issuing new policies with Covid exclusions.” Dalton explained: “The Covid


pandemic is a ‘known event’ – and you have never been able to insure against ‘known events’.” The sector has come under fire for


not paying out business interruption (BI) insurance for losses due to the


pandemic, to the extent that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) brought a High Court case against eight insurers. The FCA argued that while most BI policies “focus on property damage”, a minority include ‘disease’ and ‘denial of access’ clauses. The court ruled broadly in the


FCA’s favour on September 15, but an appeal is expected. Dalton said: “Standard BI insurance was never designed or priced to cover


Continued on page 38 travelweekly.co.uk


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