Allianz Insurance is the latest insurer to face a potential legal challenge over coronavirus-related claims under business interruption policies.

Loss assessor Harris Balcombe has teamed up with specialist insurance law firm Edwin Coe to challenge Allianz’s Resilience Material Damage and Business Interruption policy wording. The pair are calling for Allianz policyholders, many of whom they said took out the policies via brokers Jelf or Marsh, to contact and join the group.

Michael Whitton, partner at Edwin Coe commented: “This Allianz policy insures business interruption loss caused by interruption or interference to the insured’s business as a result of a notifiable disease occurring within the vicinity of an insured location. It would strike me as fanciful to suggest, as Allianz do, that cover would only be provided in the event that the loss occurred in the vicinity but not beyond thereby ruling out a pandemic.

“That’s not what the policy says. If this policy wording doesn’t give rise to an entitlement to an indemnity in relation to business interruption losses resulting from the COVID-19 shut down, I don’t know what policy wording does.”

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