Mel Stride MP, Committee Chair of the House of Commons Treasury Committee, has written a letter to Huw Evans, Director General of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) seeking responses to a series of questions about how insurance companies are responding to the coronavirus. The letter opens by stating that “many will be looking to their insurer for both flexibility and assurance” during the period of threat from the virus.
Mel Stride asks the ABI to provide data on a number of areas, including:
- The number of ABI members that have ceased to offer products since the onset of the crisis;
- The number of members that have changed their product terms, either while in force, at renewal or at initial purchase;
- Examples of policy changes;
- Examples of communications to customers to explain how things have changed in the market, and where exclusions, or changes in the circumstances of when policies can be called upon, have also changed;
- An estimation of the amount of money firms expect to pay out for business disruption in the face of the coronavirus;
- Examples of the approach that your members are taking in respect of business interruption insurance, given the government’s recent announcements concerning the requirement for businesses to close;
- Examples of the provision of cover for the costs to business relating to coronavirus and where there may be some flexibility shown in respect of this element of potential cover; and
- Examples of the implications for private medical insurance policyholders of a number of private hospitals being used for NHS patients.
