Insurance & Professional Risks Annual Review Published

• Published date: 10 February 2023
• Subject Matter: Insurance, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Insurance Laws and Products, Trials & Appeals & Compensation
• Law Firm: Herbert Smith Freehills
• Author: Mr Paul Lewis, Alexander Oddy, Barnaby Hinnigan, Fiona Treanor, Greig Anderson, Antonia Pegden and Sarah Irons

Introduction

I am delighted to share with you our Insurance & Professional Risks Annual Review of 2022 which looks back over the last 12 months on the key legal cases and developments affecting the insurance sector. Each section includes links to the articles on our blog which provide a more detailed analysis on specific topics: www.hsfnotes.com/insurance. For a helpful overview of the cases covered in the Review this year, The Year in Cases at a Glance section lists out all the cases with links to our articles.

2022 saw a number of important insurance cases handed down by the English courts. In particular, the first case to consider section 13A of the Insurance Act 2015 which gives policyholders the right to claim damages for late payment of an insurance claim. Cases arising from the COVID-19 pandemic also continued following the judgment of the Supreme Court in the FCA's business interruption test case in 2021. The COVID-19 business interruption claims section of this Review provides an overview of these decisions as well as what is on the horizon in this space in 2023. There were also decisions on familiar topics such as aggregation, co-insurance and the Third Party (Rights Against Insurers) Act 2010.

Outside the world of insurance, our Professional liability section looks at some of the key cases involving legal professionals, on topics including the duties owed to third party non-clients and conflicts of interest. 2022 saw very significant changes in the law governing building safety in the UK - the Fire Safety Act 2021 which came into force in May 2022 and the much-anticipated Building Safety Act 2022. Both new statutes are the result of a comprehensive review of how building safety is regulated following the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017 and are explored in Health and Safety. We also consider the first Supreme Court judgment on the trigger for liability under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 in Product liability

Our General interest section looks at what 2022 had in store from the perspective of the commercial litigator including the Disclosure Pilot becoming a permanent new Practice Direction and the courts grappling with the new rules on witness statements. Class actions remain a hot topic and I was delighted that the latest edition of the firm's second edition of Class actions in England and Wales, written by Herbert Smith Freehills lawyers now includes an entirely new chapter on insurance co-authored by Greig Anderson and Sarah Irons.

We predicted...