Good news from a hotelier who contacted me when his business interruption cover failed to compensate him for lockdown losses. Now, over a year after QIC Europe Ltd told CD of Powys that Covid did not count as a “notifiable disease within a 25-mile radius”, it has agreed to pay.
CD’s battle shows the lengths insurers will go to bat away expensive liabilities. QIC Europe, via its broker Davies Group, had variously insisted the pandemic did not render the hotel uninhabitable, despite lockdown, and that there was no demonstrable link between Covid and the hotel’s losses. It then magicked up a clause absent from its policy terms at the time of the claim stating that lockdowns and pandemics weren’t covered.
Now it’s paid the claim, capped at £25,000. “After all their ducking and diving, they have finally given up. I am sure your voice was a valuable contribution in persuading companies to eventually give in to reason,” writes CD. QIC Europe referred me to Davies for a comment and Davies to QIC Europe … and that was the last I heard.
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This article was amended on 21 September 2021. Earlier references to QIC have been changed to QIC Europe.
