UK insurers estimate to pay up to 2.5 bln pounds for coronavirus claims

Feb 20 (Reuters) – The Association of British Insurers (ABI) said on Saturday insurers are likely to pay up to 2.5 billion pounds ($3.50 billion) for UK’s COVID-19 insurance claims incurred in 2020.

The latest estimates include 2 billion pounds for COVID-19 business interruption claims and 500 million pounds for COVID-19 related protection insurance claims, travel insurance claims and other general insurance products.

ABI’s Director General Huw Evans said in a release that the pandemic illustrated some uncomfortable gaps between what people expected to be covered for and what their policy was designed for.

“We need to learn lessons from this unprecedented event and redouble our efforts to improve consumers’ trust in insurance products,” he added.

The insurance trade body said 123,000 claims have been settled with payment so far and a further 9,000 have received partial payments as of mid-January 2021. ($1 = 0.7139 pounds) (Reporting by Maria Ponnezhath in Bengaluru Editing by Marguerita Choy)