Industry hasn’t explained the reasons for pandemic cover exclusion properly, the Aston Lark chief said
Some insurers have “shot themselves in the foot” over their handling of the Covid-19 business interruption crisis, according to Aston Lark chief executive Peter Blanc.
Speaking during a webinar held by City Forum recently, Blanc said they should have done a better job explaining that insurance was never supposed to pay out for global pandemics.
”There’s a reason why nuclear war and biological contamination have always been excluded from policies. The same exclusions should have applied to global pandemics, but one hadn’t happened since 1918,” he said.
He pinpointed a lack of understanding among the general public about the issue.
”I’ve had clients who I consider to be reasonably bright saying ‘why aren’t insurance companies paying?’ And when you point out that what they’re effectively saying is: ‘can the insurance industry stomach paying the entire GDP of the UK’, then patently there is no way the insurance industry could withstand that.
”The situation they’re in is just accidental exposure, but it’s coming out in the press as insurers weaseling out of their responsibilities.”
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