France, this is exactly why the financial hub of Europe has been in London, not Paris. The amount of unnecessary government overreach is mind boggling. 45% marginal rate of income tax plus value added tax on just about everything… Even with Brexit I don’t think London’s position as Europe’s financial hub will change… This type of government intervention is exactly what scares companies away from setting up their HQ in France….
I don’t know about that. NY is the financial capital of the world and it has one of the most liberal court systems in the country. The policy must have been in English and no one was able to translate it:-)
Hah! Mike, trust me, New York’s bureaucracy and government is NOTHING compared to Paris. Paris makes New York look like Houston. Don’t get me wrong, I have spent a lot of time in France and there is a lot I like about it (great food, history, culture, etc.), but the business environment is very difficult.
Article title is click-bait for such a very minor, isolated issue. Policy is designed to provide pandemic coverage and the court’s decision affects only 200 policies with some quirky language. The article doesn’t even provide the language. A minor issue in one isolated community and IJ provides world-wide coverage? = click-bait to help sell advertising.
I read it differently. AXA said a few hospitality clients had some pandemic cover, but I don’t think this restaurant had that policy. The French court found cover under their more general policy language, which could have wide-reaching precedent.
insexpert.. Agreed. I commented on it before reading it. You have to understand, I grew up in the UK, so I take every opportunity I can to denigrate the French.
AXA and others, have been squirming like a barrel of eels for weeks, whilst certain businesses they insure go under. Sure the headline is meant to grab attention and I agree, the vast majority of policies do not provide cover for COVID-19 related BI losses, but many do! AXAUK and others such as Argenta Syndicate, have policyholder’s with industry specific covers providing protection without any restriction of Human Infectious Diseases needing to be be named. Added to which, these policies provide for an interruption if such infection occurs within 25 miles of the business and you’d think they’d be banged to rights! Wrong! Instead they are trotting out the same lame argument how it was never their intention of the policy to cover “pandemics”. Well, I’m sorry, but what insurers intended, as opposed to what they actually provided, is of absolutely no relevance to individual policyholder’s. The fact insurers never imagined so many businesses all claiming at once for something they only envisaged occurring on a local scale, is their problem and a problem for their risk managers and stakeholders, not the policyholders.
The FCA will get an opinion on this sooner rather than later I hope, and that opinion will surely confirm what an utter disgrace certain quarters of the UK insurance industry have been and insist they admit the claims for policies that have these broader, ambiguous wordings. NFUM have already held their hands up (good for them) and are now paying losses under certain wordings. The rest must follow their lead.
With such short-sightedness, clearly driven by the ill-founded fear of muliti-billion pound losses, they have dragged the industry into the mud once more. No one is saying all BI losses should be paid, as it is common knowledge most policies are very explicit in the cover which has been provided, and therefore a meltdown of the insurance industry would not ensue.
However, insurers holding out like this may well be taking them down the path of ruin and at the very least see a whole swathe of class actions from busìnesses which have already gone bust because they have been denied the lifeline of being paid for their valid claims and the FCA will inevitably rule AXA and all the rest were bang out of order.
As you can tell, I am quite angry about this and my further rants can be found on Twitter @LaGrandeQuercia
insexpert: may I ask the source of your more detailed knowledge? This isn’t the only “piège à clics” (following CELF guidance) I have come across, and none have mentioned the limited scope of the policy language.
Thanks.
it seems AXA (and all of its peers) don’t want AXA to fight a loosing battle, and if France’s legal system has similarity to the USA’s, the insurance executives won’t want bad case law setting a precedent I could imagine.
France, this is exactly why the financial hub of Europe has been in London, not Paris. The amount of unnecessary government overreach is mind boggling. 45% marginal rate of income tax plus value added tax on just about everything… Even with Brexit I don’t think London’s position as Europe’s financial hub will change… This type of government intervention is exactly what scares companies away from setting up their HQ in France….
I don’t know about that. NY is the financial capital of the world and it has one of the most liberal court systems in the country. The policy must have been in English and no one was able to translate it:-)
Hah! Mike, trust me, New York’s bureaucracy and government is NOTHING compared to Paris. Paris makes New York look like Houston. Don’t get me wrong, I have spent a lot of time in France and there is a lot I like about it (great food, history, culture, etc.), but the business environment is very difficult.
Article title is click-bait for such a very minor, isolated issue. Policy is designed to provide pandemic coverage and the court’s decision affects only 200 policies with some quirky language. The article doesn’t even provide the language. A minor issue in one isolated community and IJ provides world-wide coverage? = click-bait to help sell advertising.
I read it differently. AXA said a few hospitality clients had some pandemic cover, but I don’t think this restaurant had that policy. The French court found cover under their more general policy language, which could have wide-reaching precedent.
insexpert.. Agreed. I commented on it before reading it. You have to understand, I grew up in the UK, so I take every opportunity I can to denigrate the French.
Pardon my French, but “Sacrebleu!”
AXA and others, have been squirming like a barrel of eels for weeks, whilst certain businesses they insure go under. Sure the headline is meant to grab attention and I agree, the vast majority of policies do not provide cover for COVID-19 related BI losses, but many do! AXAUK and others such as Argenta Syndicate, have policyholder’s with industry specific covers providing protection without any restriction of Human Infectious Diseases needing to be be named. Added to which, these policies provide for an interruption if such infection occurs within 25 miles of the business and you’d think they’d be banged to rights! Wrong! Instead they are trotting out the same lame argument how it was never their intention of the policy to cover “pandemics”. Well, I’m sorry, but what insurers intended, as opposed to what they actually provided, is of absolutely no relevance to individual policyholder’s. The fact insurers never imagined so many businesses all claiming at once for something they only envisaged occurring on a local scale, is their problem and a problem for their risk managers and stakeholders, not the policyholders.
The FCA will get an opinion on this sooner rather than later I hope, and that opinion will surely confirm what an utter disgrace certain quarters of the UK insurance industry have been and insist they admit the claims for policies that have these broader, ambiguous wordings. NFUM have already held their hands up (good for them) and are now paying losses under certain wordings. The rest must follow their lead.
With such short-sightedness, clearly driven by the ill-founded fear of muliti-billion pound losses, they have dragged the industry into the mud once more. No one is saying all BI losses should be paid, as it is common knowledge most policies are very explicit in the cover which has been provided, and therefore a meltdown of the insurance industry would not ensue.
However, insurers holding out like this may well be taking them down the path of ruin and at the very least see a whole swathe of class actions from busìnesses which have already gone bust because they have been denied the lifeline of being paid for their valid claims and the FCA will inevitably rule AXA and all the rest were bang out of order.
As you can tell, I am quite angry about this and my further rants can be found on Twitter @LaGrandeQuercia
Great piece of information.
insexpert: may I ask the source of your more detailed knowledge? This isn’t the only “piège à clics” (following CELF guidance) I have come across, and none have mentioned the limited scope of the policy language.
Thanks.
Hi Steven,
This article may be of help with what he was alluding to….
https://www.insuranceage.co.uk/insurer/7513521/axa-to-pay-french-covid-19-bi-claims-after-court-ruling-reports
it seems AXA (and all of its peers) don’t want AXA to fight a loosing battle, and if France’s legal system has similarity to the USA’s, the insurance executives won’t want bad case law setting a precedent I could imagine.