2024 Belfast Coverage Symposium

Belfast Coverage Symposium 2024

We are delighted to announce the details of this year’s Belfast Coverage Symposium. Join us on 5 December at the Grand Central Hotel for an insightful half-day event for insurance brokers.

The Symposium commences with registration at 1:30pm, followed by an interactive workshop and talks covering recent key cases that have influenced the insurance disputes landscape in recent years. The final talk will conclude at 5:45pm, followed by drinks.

Gain the knowledge and insights necessary to confidently guide your clients through common coverage problems. Register your place today!

Location - Grand Central Hotel Belfast

Date: 5 December 2024

Venue: Grand Central Hotel

Bedford Street, Belfast, BT2 7FF

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2024 Programme

1:30 PM

Registration

2:00 PM

Welcome, and Aggregation workshop

Aggregation is one of the most frequent areas of dispute between policyholders and their insurers. Unusually, it is also an area where the relevant policy provisions aren’t either obviously “pro-policyholder” or “pro-insurer”. This interactive session will look at some of the most common ways in which limits of indemnity and deductibles are capable of aggregating, including by reference to “event”, or “originating cause”, or by reference to a “series” of one of those, and will invite the audience to apply the principles discussed to a selection of case studies.

SPEAKER

David Pryce, Senior Partner

2:45 PM

Recent Developments regarding S.1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972

S.1 of the Defective Premises Act 1972 (“the DPA”) requires those involved in building and designing new dwellings to work in a professional or workmanlike manner, to use proper materials and to see that the completed dwelling is fit for habitation. This session will provide a refresher on some of the key principles under S.1 of the DPA, together with an update on recent case law; namely, URS Corporation Limited v BDW Trading Limited [2023] which establishes that the duty under S.1 is also owed to developers, and Vainker v Marbank Construction Ltd [2024], which reinforces the well-established fitness for habitation test.

SPEAKER

Alex Rosenfield, Associate Partner

3:15 PM

Delos Shipholding v Allianz: Fortuitousness & Non-disclosure

Fortuity and non-disclosure – some lessons from the Commercial Court’s decision in Delos Shipholding v Allianz. Plus a brief update on S.11 Insurance Act (breach of warranty) following the recent case of MOK Petro Energy v. Argo

SPEAKER

Jonathan Corman, Partner

3:45 PM

Break

4:00 PM

Coverage aspects of fire safety claims

Obtaining cover for fire safety claims has been difficult since the Grenfell Fire. Whilst initially exclusions related largely to cladding, they have since expanded to other fire safety matters. Catherine will briefly touch on the problems being faced by the industry before discussing the issues to consider when procuring policies and making claims which may limit or exclude cover in relation to fire safety claims.

SPEAKER

Catherine Piercy KC, Gatehouse Chambers

4:45 PM

Estoppel: the welcome resurgence of this policyholder-friendly concept

An update on recent cases where Waiver and Estoppel, came to the policyholder’s rescue, including World Challenge Expeditions v Zurich and George on High Limited v Alan Boswell Insurance Brokers Limited.

SPEAKERS

Daniel Robin, Deputy Managing Partner & Dru Corfield, Associate

5:15 PM

The Future of the Defects Exclusions after SCB and Archer

A Court in the USA has delivered the world’s first legal decision on the most generous of the three London Engineering Group (LEG) clauses related to defect exclusions, LEG3, in the case of South Capitol Bridgebuilders v Lexington Insurance Company. The fact that the Construction All Risks (CAR) market has been waiting for a LEG3 decision for this long means that SCB v Lexington was always going to receive a lot of attention. However, the unrestrained and intemperate language used by the Judge means that there is a risk that the decision will create more heat than light, and has the potential to lead to a reaction by CAR insurers which could negatively affect the interests of policyholders. This case study therefore attempts to take a step back from the eye-catching language used by the Judge in SCB, and to discuss what the future for LEG3 might look like.

SPEAKER

David Pryce, Senior Partner

5:45 PM