Webinar - D&O: life after the pandemic
Agenda
This talk will provide a recap on the types of claims that directors can face and how D&O policies can respond to them. It will also examine some of the issues arising with D&O claims, and how Covid-19 could present further challenges ahead for the D&O market.
James Breese is a Senior Associate at Fenchurch Law
The Good, the Bad & the Ugly: #13 (The Bad). Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation Trust & v Lakehouse Contracts
Welcome to the latest in the series of blogs from Fenchurch Law: 100 cases every policyholder needs to know. An opinionated and practical guide to the most important insurance decisions relating to the London / English insurance markets, all looked at from a pro-policyholder perspective.
Some cases are correctly decided and positive for policyholders. We celebrate those cases as The Good.
Some cases are, in our view, bad for policyholders, wrongly decided, and in need of being overturned. We highlight those decisions as The Bad.
Other cases are bad for policyholders but seem (even to our policyholder-tinted eyes) to be correctly decided. Those cases can trip up even the most honest policyholder with the most genuine claim. We put the hazard lights on those cases as The Ugly.
At Fenchurch Law we love the insurance market. But we love policyholders just a little bit more.
#13 (The Bad)
Haberdashers’ Aske’s Federation Trust Ltd & others v (1) Lakehouse Contracts Ltd & (2) Cambridge Polymer Roofing Ltd [2018] EWHC 588 (TCC)
This case arose from fire damage to a school during construction works. The main contractor (“Lakehouse”) settled proceedings brought by the claimants for £8.75million, paid by the project insurers, and sought to recover £5million from its roofing sub-contractor (“CPR”), being the limit of indemnity under a separate CAR/liability policy taken out by CPR in accordance with express terms of the building contract.
The court was required to determine as a preliminary issue whether CPR was covered under the project policy, which included Lakehouse and its sub-contractors as insureds, and agreement of insurers by endorsement to “waive all rights of subrogation which they may have or acquire against any insured party”. The court held that CPR was not insured under the project policy, given the clear intention expressed in the sub-contract for CPR to take out and rely on its own insurance cover.
In reaching this conclusion, the Judge considered competing theories as to how a sub-contractor may obtain the benefit of project insurance, i.e. (1) the main insured acting as agent, with its conduct subsequently ratified by the sub-contractor (this was considered problematic as sub-contractors would not necessarily have been ascertained at the time of policy inception, nor be able to ratify if they had no insurable interest as yet); (2) a “standing offer” by project insurers to provide cover for members of a defined group; or (3) acceptance by the sub-contractor’s conduct that it would become an insured under the project policy. The standing offer rationale was considered to be the most appropriate.
An appeal was listed in January 2019 but the case settled before the hearing. Given a number of difficulties with the first instance decision, it is unfortunate that the opportunity for further debate and clarification in the Court of Appeal was missed on this occasion.
The Haberdashers judgment seems unfair in terms of a windfall for project insurers, who receive premium based on cover for sub-contractors of any tier, despite sub-contracts likely imposing additional insurance obligations. It is impossible for insurers to accurately rate their exposure on this basis, without knowing at the time of writing the project policy what limits a future (as yet unidentified) sub-contractor may or may not take out.
It seems odd that terms of a contract between third parties should determine who is insured under a pre-existing project policy. The decision effectively confines the scope of project insurers’ standing offer to provision of cover for “sub-contractors who have not agreed to obtain their own insurance” but such a limitation was nowhere to be found in the terms of the project policy.
Given the express waiver of subrogation rights, the reasoning seems inconsistent with the Supreme Court majority view in Gard Marine - that a strong presumption applies in favour of an implied term precluding claims between co-insureds (even if the contract contains an express warranty from the defendant to protect insured property); and the effect of co-insurance is to exclude - as opposed to discharge - liability as between co-insureds. On this reasoning Lakehouse would have no liability to the claimants, which suggests that there is no basis on which a back-to-back claim could be pursued against CPR.
The subrogated claim against CPR was limited to £5million and the Judge suggested (obiter) that project insurers would not have been able to recover the full loss, i.e. the additional £3.75million settlement sum, as it was surely not anticipated that CPR would bear any additional uninsured loss where there was project insurance in place with a higher limit. This was not fully explained in the judgment and begs the question of whether a hybrid situation could arise whereby a sub-contractor is not co-insured up to the limit of its own separate cover, but in excess of that level, becomes insured by the project policy. Further peculiarities as to apportionment of liability could arise where a mismatch occurs between the scope of cover under a project policy and the sub-contractor’s liability insurance, giving rise to significant uncertainties for policyholders and insurers alike.
In our view, the decision in Haberdashers is a bad one. We prefer the approach adopted by the Court of Appeal in Rathbone Brothers v Novae, to the effect that an overlapping insurance situation may arise, even where one policy was specifically intended to cover the loss in question.
Debate as to whether, and in what circumstances, primacy should be given to express allocation of risk within a construction contract as opposed to inferences drawn from the existence of a project policy is likely to continue. Even if a contractor is presumed to fall within the definition of insured parties under a project policy, it should ensure that risk allocation and insurance provisions in its construction contract(s) are consistent, for example by specifying that any separate insurance required to be taken out by the contractor should operate in excess of the project cover, to minimise the prospect of subrogated claims.
Amy Lacey is a partner at Fenchurch Law.
Insurers bound by the small print? I should cocoa!
ABN Amro Bank N.V. -v- Royal & Sun Alliance Insurance plc and others [2021] EWHC 442 (Comm)
In the latest in a line of policyholder-friendly judgments, this recent ruling from the Commercial Court confirms that underwriters will be bound by the terms of policies they enter into whether they have read them or not.
The court found no grounds for departing from the important principle of English law that a person who signs a document knowing that it is intended to have legal effect is generally bound by its terms. Any erosion of that principle, which unpins the whole of commercial life, it was noted, would have serious repercussions far beyond the business community.
A foregone conclusion perhaps? Indeed the judge commented that prior to this case he would have regarded as unsurprising the proposition that underwriters should read the terms of the contract to which they put their names. What was it then that spurred the 14 defendant underwriters to seek to argue the contrary, apparently oblivious to the irony of their taking a point which routinely falls on deaf ears when more commonly made by policyholders unaware of implications of the small print for their claims?
In brief, the claimant bank, ABN Amro, was seeking an indemnity of £33.5 million under a policy placed in the marine market that unusually, and perhaps unprecedentedly, contained a clause the effect of which was to provide the equivalent of trade credit insurance, and not simply an indemnity for physical loss and damage to the cargo. As such, when the cargo, which in this instance comprised various cocoa products, was sold at a loss following the collapse of two of the leading players in the cocoa market and the default by them on their credit facility, the bank incurred losses that it contended were covered by the policy.
The underwriters submitted that the non-standard nature of this clause was such that clear words would have been required to widen the scope of cover beyond physical loss and damage, given the presumption that marine cargo insurance is limited to such loss. The court however found that, applying the well-established principles of legal construction, the wording of the clause was clear, and therefore its natural meaning should not be rejected simply because it was an imprudent term for the underwriters to have agreed, given the adverse commercial consequences for them.
The underwriters further submitted that they had not read the policy, and that the particular wording and its effect should have been brought to their attention as it was unfair to expect a marine cargo underwriter to understand the purpose of the clause. The bank contended that it was “frankly bizarre” for the underwriters to be essentially arguing that they, as leading participants in the London insurance market had to be told what terms were contained in the written policy wording presented to them and what those terms meant. The court agreed, finding that the underwriters could not properly allege that the clause was not disclosed to them when it was there in the policy to which they subscribed, and that further, as the bank contended, the insured was under no duty to offer the insurer advice. The insurer was presumed to know its own business and to be able to form its own judgment on the risk as it was presented.
Many other principles of insurance law were raised by this case and are covered in the wide-ranging 263-page judgment including (i) the applicable principles of legal construction; (ii) the incorporation and impact of a non-avoidance clause in the policy (it prevented the insurers from repudiating the contract for non-disclosure or misrepresentation in the absence of fraud); (iii) whether the underwriters had affirmed the policy by serving a defence that was consistent with a position that recognised its continuing validity (they had); (iv) whether mere negligence, as opposed to recklessness, was sufficient to breach a reasonable precautions clause in the policy (it was not); and (v) the scope of a broker’s duty to procure cover the meets the insured’s requirements and protects it against the risk of litigation (which duty had been breached and would have led to a liability on the part of the broker had the claims against the underwriters not succeeded).
However, the key takeaway for insurers, policyholders and commercial contracting parties alike is that a court will not step in to relieve a party of the adverse consequences of a bad bargain: the purpose of interpretation is to identify what the parties have agreed, not what the court thinks that they should have agreed. In other words, it always pays to read the small print.
Joanna Grant is a Partner at Fenchurch Law.
Covid-19 BI Update: Coronavirus, the plague of the 21st Century? Apparently not.
Rockliffe Hall Limited v Travelers Insurance Company Limited [2021] EWHC 412 (Comm)
On 25 February 2021, Mrs Justice Cockerill handed down judgment in the latest Covid-19 BI coverage dispute to come before the Courts. The case was brought against Travellers Insurance Company Limited over a dispute as to the interpretation of the Disease Clause extension of the Policy and whether it would extend to cover Covid-19 losses.
Mrs Justice Cockerill found in favour of the insurer, granting an application to strike out the claim brought by the owners of Rockliffe Hall Limited, a 5-star hotel and resort in County Durham, which like many businesses across the country was forced to close during the pandemic.
The parties’ arguments focused on wording of the Infectious Disease extension to the Business Interruption Section of the Policy. The extension, like many others in use, contained a list of 34 specified diseases, which did not include Covid-19.
The wording and construction of many Business Interruption clauses have of course been considered in detail by the High Court and the Supreme Court in the Test Case brought by the FCA. They did not however, deal with the type of wording which is at the forefront of this dispute.
In this case, the insurer maintained that cover provided by the Disease Clause extends only to loss resulting from one of the 34 diseases specifically listed in the policy wordings. It stressed that this list is “closed and exhaustive” and as Covid-19 was not included on this list, losses resulting from Covid-19 would not be covered.
Rockliffe on the other hand argued that the disease wording was ambiguous as it contained a number of what it termed ‘General Diseases’, which are not attributable to specific causes or pathogens, one of which was “Plague”. The hotel contested the insurer’s position that the list was “closed and exhaustive”, arguing that the definitions of the ‘General Diseases’ should be read widely to include any disease bearing a reasonable similarity, such as Covid-19.
Rockliffe went on to argue that the term ‘Plague’ could have various meanings, one of which is “Any infectious disease which spreads rapidly and has a high mortality rate; an epidemic of such a disease.”
Mrs Justice Cockerill was not convinced. She applied the ordinary principles of construction, in considering what a reasonable reader would have understood the parties to have meant by the language used and concluded that it would be “fanciful in the extreme” to believe that a reasonable reader, would interpret the term “Plague” in that way.
Rockliffe also asserted that Covid-19 could be associated with or cause some of the more specific diseases included in the Disease Clause, such as meningitis and encephalitis as there is evidence of these conditions being associated with and or caused by Covid-19. Again, Justice Cockerill dismissed this argument as an “Alice in wonderland” approach.
The “contra proferentem” rule was also considered briefly, as it was introduced by Rockliffe, in respect of the meaning of the word “Plague” in the context of the Policy. Mrs Justice Cockerill refused to apply the principle as there was no ambiguity, which serves as a useful reminder that the Courts will not invoke the “contra proferentem” rule in the absence of any genuine ambiguity.
The end of the Covid-19 pandemic may be in sight but the subsequent impact and unanswered questions over coverage are likely to linger for some time. Whilst a negative outcome for the policyholder in this case, every judgment that deals with the interpretation of policy wording, assists policyholders and insurers alike as it clarifies the position on these issues and provides consistency.
This case is one example of an issue that has been the subject of some debate over the past year, but is now settled conclusively.
Serena Mills is an Associate at Fenchurch Law.
