Insurance Act 2015

The current law on commercial insurance is founded on a 1906 statute which itself codified case law from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The Insurance Act 2015 will apply to policies incepted or renewed from 12 August 2016 and is designed to change the law to reflect modern business relationships and to rebalance rights and remedies when things go wrong.

Did you know that when the Insurance Act 2015 comes into force on 12 August 2016, it will significantly impact your disclosure obligations when you take out, renew, or vary any business insurance that is subject to the laws of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland?

This guide sets out:

1. How the law will change.
2. Areas which insureds should start to think through in advance of their first renewal under the new regime.
3. Questions that brokers will need to consider within their own organisations and in their relationships with both clients and insurers.
4. Finally, it suggests what brokers might want to have in their toolkit by August 2016 to ensure minimal disruption to business.

The laws under which you arrange commercial insurance are changing, creating new duties for insurers and policyholders to comply with.

The legislation is seeking to create a new and fairer balance between policyholder and insurer and to raise professional standards at placement.

The Insurance Act 2015 (the new Act) comes into force in August 2016 but many insurers have indicated that they are willing to bring their policies in line with the more policyholderfriendly regime before that date. This briefing note is designed to assist risk managers and other buyers of non-consumer insurance to get ahead of the game now and benefit from these important changes to English insurance law from the date of their next renewal.

On July 17, 2014 the Government introduced the Insurance Bill [the Bill] into Parliament which proposes amendment to the business insured's duty of disclosure, the law of warranties and insurer remedies for fraudulent claims. The Bill contains most of the clauses from the earlier Law Commission Draft Insurance Contracts Bill, which pulled together recommendations from the last three years of consultation papers. If passed, the Bill would become law 18 months from the day it was enacted.

Though commercial insurance buyers are set to benefit from imminent legal changes, they will also have greater responsibilities around the information they disclose to their insurers

RSA has today welcomed the Royal Assent of the Insurance Act but has called for it to go further.

The Insurance Act heralds the first major changes for the UK’s commercial insurance market in more than a century replacing the Marine Insurance Act of 1906.

The Insurance Act 2015 (the “Act”) received Royal Assent on 12 February 2015, bringing about the biggest change to English insurance contract law in more than 100 years, and will come into force in August 2016. Marsh very much welcomes the Act and has been lobbying the Law Commissions to introduce these reforms since they started their consultations in 2006.