Fight between restaurants and insurers over lockdown payouts heats up

The fight between top restaurant groups and insurers over money owed during lockdown has been turned up a notch.

Corbin & King, which owns The Wolseley, and Inception Group, the owner of Bunga Bunga, believe they should have been paid business interruption insurance during the lockdowns.

Neither have received money from French insurer Axa and are seeking a declaratory judgment – when the court is asked to rule on the meaning of a policy. Jeremy King, Corbin & King boss, said: ‘There is a great deal of anger in the trade that we’ve paid substantial premiums and [when] we need that support, been denied it.’

In January Supreme Court judges found in favour of many policyholders after considering a test case. 

But Axa has refused to pay out.

The insurer said: ‘Whilst we understand the challenging situation many businesses have faced, we feel it is wrong to try to suggest a different outcome from an appeal judgment that very specifically didn’t include these policies.’