When the UK lockdown was first announced, few could have foreseen just how long these measures would remain in place. Every daily increase in COVID-19 cases sparks fresh concerns that a second total lockdown could be on its way. Yet, on the bright side, for so many businesses throughout the UK, the uncertainty of the last six months has been an opportunity to explore what they can do differently and to make instrumental changes to prepare themselves for the future.
Read more: Fenchurch Law on supporting regional brokers
Fenchurch Law is among those businesses which have poured substantial energy and focus into a range of initiatives to support its clients through the crisis. Speaking with Insurance Business, the MD of Fenchurch Law, David Pryce (pictured), noted that the business’s COVID-19 directives have been primarily led by Aaron le Marquer, a partner at the firm who leads its product and environmental risks practice group, who took the view that the best way the business could support policyholders was not to put together a class action.
“This is not a criticism of class actions,” he said, “we just decided there was room for a different approach. We took the view that a class action wouldn’t be the right thing because the way those are structured would lead to a big chunk of any recovery coming out of the policyholder’s pocket. What we wanted was to put something together that would help policyholders but not cost them anything.
“And we did that because we [recognise] that COVID-19 has meant that policyholders are in a uniquely vulnerable position financially. There’s never been anything like it where you’ve had the whole economy shut down. And we thought that, with so many policyholders affected by that, it’s the wrong time to be taking any money out of their pockets. So, what we wanted to do is try and put together something that would allow us to help brokers and, through helping brokers, help as many policyholders as possible.”
This drive has gone along two different tracks, he said, the first being the continuation of the free advice Fenchurch Law gives to brokers routinely. Secondly, the firm has been providing more substantive advice on a paid basis to many of the larger brokers who have retained its advisory services concerning the different wording that each broker has with business interruption policies.
By acting for a number of different brokers and examining their wordings across the board, Pryce said, the team has been able to aggregate the work it is doing and pull together similar clauses to generate advice in relation to categories of clauses rather than on the basis of each individual policy.
“We did this very early in the lockdown and that allowed each of those brokers to then go and advise their clients regarding whether they were covered as far as that broker and we were concerned, and obviously this fed into what the FCA was doing,” he explained. “And that was another reason we decided the class action route wasn’t the right thing for us because the FCA was taking a position on behalf of policyholders… and we felt what they were doing was going to be sufficient with regard to the legal route.”
As a policyholder-focused law firm, Pryce noted that it has been rewarding to be able to work for the benefit of policyholders and brokers throughout such a difficult time. The ability of the team to work for its clients has not been negatively impacted by the crisis - in fact, its productivity has only increased. There is no rush to get back to the office five days a week, he said - actually, this is unlikely to ever be the case again though there is still much to be said for working face to face and the sense of team cohesion that this brings.
In addition, the firm has launched a claims advocacy service for brokers which provides them and their clients with professional support, advice, and assistance on claims-related issues for a fixed monthly fee.
“This is aimed at brokers below the big three and nationals,” Pryce said, “as at that level they have the volume of claims to justify hiring people who are experienced specialist claims advocates. If you’re a smaller broker without a high volume of complicated grey area claims, you just don’t have the justification for having a full-time staff member at that sort of cost. So, we think there is a gap at the slightly smaller end of the broking community… and we think smaller brokers would really benefit from being able to buy in externally that resource, as they may only need it for a few hours a month.”
For Fenchurch Law, all new initiatives stem from questioning how they support the broking community and thus support policyholders, Pryce said, and this was also behind the launch of the firm’s Leeds office. The office has been established to support those policyholders and brokers in the north of England as many of these clients have made it clear over the years that they would like to have these services located closer to them geographically.
“We’ve got some people who happen to live in the north of England, so we thought we’d support them by having an office that is closer to the brokers and policyholders in the north. And we are now recruiting for additional members for the team in Leeds and it will be interesting to see the extent to which [our clients] in the north value something that is geographically closer to them,” Pryce said. “I’m heading up to Leeds to spend the day with the guys there, so we’re very much hoping this is going to strike a chord among smaller brokers.”
