Insurance coverage review

Most businesses learn what their insurance covers on the day they need it. The policies were bought over the years through different brokers, renewed without being reread, and describe a company that has since grown, moved, taken on new activities or signed contracts promising cover it does not have. The discovery comes in a refusal letter that cites an exclusion nobody noticed or a declaration that was no longer accurate, at the moment the business can least afford an argument.

A coverage review reads the insurance programme as a whole, against what the business actually does and what its contracts require it to carry. It looks at the policy wording rather than the summary, and at the obligations that fall on the insured as much as those that fall on the insurer:

• the rules on the information you must give when a policy is taken out or renewed, and on what follows from an incomplete or inaccurate declaration;
• the rules on informing the insurer when the risk changes — a new activity, a new site, a larger turnover;
• the rules on how definitions, exclusions and conditions are interpreted, and on who must prove that one of them applies;
• the rules on sums insured and deductibles, and on the reduction applied when the sum insured is set too low;
• the rules on which companies, directors, employees and subcontractors count as insured under a single policy;
• the rules on two policies covering the same loss, and on which insurer pays first;
• the rules on cover triggered by the event and cover triggered by the claim, and on the gaps left when one policy replaces another;
• the rules on the insurance your customers, lenders and landlords require you to hold, and on whether your policies match what you promised;
• the rules on reporting an incident promptly and cooperating with the insurer’s investigation.

Our lawyers can support you with this.