• Latest from litigation brought by policyholder claimants led by Bath Racecourse (represented by Stewarts) against insurers.
• Ruling provides further clarity on issue of aggregation, confirming policyholders with multiple premises are entitled to multiple limits of indemnity.

22 July 2025: The High Court has today handed down the latest in a string of judgments resulting from litigation brought by claimant policyholders, led by Bath Racecourse Co Ltd, part of the Arena Racing Company. The claimant policyholders were represented by partners Aaron Le Marquer and James Breese of Stewarts, and the claims are brought against Liberty Mutual, Allianz and Aviva.

There were multiple issues under review but it is especially notable that Sean O’Sullivan KC (sitting as a Deputy Judge of the High Court) found that the term ‘any one loss’ operates here to provide each of the claimants’ separate premises (or facilities, as Mr O’Sullivan described them) with their own limits and sub-limits of indemnity.

This is a significant finding for businesses with multiple premises and that are insured under  business interruption insurance policies with an ‘any one loss’ wording. It goes further than the already established finding that composite policies of insurance provide separate limits and sub-limits of indemnity to different insured entities within a group.

The judgment today provides that where those same entities within a group also have separate premises or facilities, there may be additional limits and sub-limits of indemnity available separately to those premises or facilities. Subject to the terms of their policies in each instance, this may entitle such businesses to significantly larger payouts from business interruption and interference caused by Covid-19.

James Breese of Stewarts comments: “We welcome today’s judgment and the further clarification that businesses with multiple premises may have their own separate limits and sub-limits of indemnity subject to the applicable policy wording. Following earlier decisions in the long-running chronology of Covid-19 business interruption disputes, it is unsurprising to us that the Court reached this outcome when considering how ‘any one loss’ is to operate. It is pleasing that these issues continue to largely be determined in favour of policyholders. We look forward to another key milestone in the chronology; the Supreme Court’s hearing of the furlough appeal.”

Further litigation in Bath Racecourse Company Limited and others v Liberty Mutual Insurance Europe SE and others is ongoing: the Supreme Court has granted the test case claimant policyholders permission to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision in February 2025 that insurers were entitled to deduct the value of furlough payments from business interruption payouts. This issue is estimated to be worth billions to insurance policyholders.

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