FCA Test Case

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has now started legal proceedings in the High Court aimed at resolving the contractual uncertainty around the validity of many business interruption claims. This litigation is known as the FCA test case.

The FCA has selected a sample of policy wordings from eight insurers to participate in the test case. Travelers Insurance Company Limited is not one of these insurers and is not a defendant in the test case.

The hearing of the test case is scheduled to start on 20 July 2020 and finish on 30 July 2020. The Court’s judgment will be delivered and made public shortly after. However, the final resolution of the test case will not be achieved until any appeals have either been concluded or the time for appealing has expired.

Pending the outcome of the test case, any decision regarding a claim which Travelers Insurance Company Limited has already communicated to any policyholder remains unchanged. Where a claim is still under consideration, any final decision will await the outcome of the test case. The outcome will provide us with guidance with regard to interpretation of our policy wordings similar to those in the test case, if any.

 Details of  the progress of the test case can be found on the FCA’s website (https://www.fca.org.uk/firms/business-interruption-insurance ) where you are also able to subscribe for email updates from the FCA.