Main description:

This book offers a novel study on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on insurance from an international and comparative perspective. It assesses how insurance has to adapt to a new landscape, the effects of which will last over time and cut across all areas of the field. To avoid physical contact, digitalisation has accelerated dramatically, affecting insurance in all its phases: risk selection, underwriting, pricing and claims settlement. However, the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic go far beyond that. The extent to which a claim caused directly or indirectly by the virus is or is not covered by a given policy has been the subject of debate in many insurance branches.

The most litigated cases worldwide are those that concern damages resulting from business interruption due to restrictions enforced by the authorities in virtually every country. This book analyses the rulings (for and against the insured) that have already been handed down by courts in various jurisdictions (for example in the US, Latin America, Spain and Germany), in order to provide guidance to the parties in future lawsuits and also to guide the courts' own responses.

This analysis extends to the measures that governments have taken in relation to insurance during the pandemic, as well as the changes that insurers have introduced in their general conditions to exclude coverage for the pandemic. This response is unsatisfactory, as the big question is how pandemic-related risks can be covered if private insurers simply refuse to do so. Solutions based on risk sharing with public entities or the use of contractual modalities such as parametric insurance are among those outlined by the authors.

The book was written by experts from academia and lawyers specialising in this field, and written for all those interested in the field of insurance: lawyers, judges, academics and legal professionals.

Contents:

.-Insurance Developments in the Light of the Occurrence of the COVID-19 Pandemic.-Understanding Parametric Insurance: A Potential Tool to Help Manage Pandemic.- Business Interruption Insurance and COVID-19: A Critical Analysis of the Jurisprudence and the Response of the Spanish Insurance Sector.- COVID-19 and Business Interruption Coverage in the U.S.: an Example of Judicial Regulation.- American Exceptionalism: The COVID-19 Insurance Experience.- Business as (Un-) Usual. The Evolution of German Insurance Law and Especially Insurance Supervisory Law in the Time of COVID-19.- Impact of COVID-19 on the Latin American Insurance and Reinsurance Market.- COVID-19 Treatment Refusal: Medical Liability Insurance in Greece in light of the Oviedo Convention.- The Influence of COVID-19 on Life insurance. Polish Market Perspective.- Impact of COVID-19 on Travel and Health Insurance.- The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Sports Industry and Sports Insurance. Case of Novak Djokovic and Australian Open Tennis Tournament 2022.- Directors & Officers Insurance and COVID-19: Future Exclusions with Retroactive Application.