HISTORY OF BUSINESS INTERRUPTION INSURANCE

HISTORY OF BUSINESS INTERRUPTION INSURANCE

undefinedInsurers and insurance brokers realised that just insuring the physical assets of a business was not enough to fully protect a business from significant losses or often financial ruin following an insured event such as fire, storm, lightning, or the myriad of other perils covered by insurance. The primary reason for this is obvious when you think about it. In simplest terms Royal Mail does not stop delivering the bills when the fire brigade has driven off. Quite often it is “fire today, gone tomorrow1 even with full property insurance.

It was Cuthbert Heath, one of the most innovative and influential of Lloyds Brokers, who developed what we would now recognise as business interruption insurance.