The Commercial Court has dismissed claims by 15 policyholders for approximately €160m in COVID-19 business interruption losses under a suite of Generali policies covering hotels, spas, restaurants and offices across the UK, Czechia, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary.

The judgment of Mr Justice Andrew Baker in CP Holdings Limited and Others v Assicurazioni Generali SpA and Others [2026] EWHC 1520 (Comm), handed down following a trial of preliminary issues ordered in July 2024, delivered a clean sweep for the insurers on every substantive ground.

Background

There were four insurance policies in issue on which the claimants relied to recover COVID-19 related revenue losses: a combined ‘All Risks’ property damage and business interruption policy issued by the first defendant (the 2018 Global Policy); a property damage and business interruption ‘All Risks’ policy also issued by the first defendant (the 2019 Global Policy); a policy issued by the second defendant insuring only Danubius Hotels ZRT and Gundel KFT (the 'Hungarian Policy'); and a policy issued by the third defendant insuring Balneoclimaterica Srl (the 'Romanian Policy').

No agreement, no rectification

The claimants sought to rectify the 2019 Global Policy to include a 'conformity term' ensuring the 2019-2020 cover was no less favourable than the previous year, arguing this had been agreed at the June 2019 renewal through their broker, Aon UK (essentially a safety net stating “whatever the new wording says, the old policy terms will apply if they provided more cover”). The Court disagreed.

Reviewing the pre-contract exchanges closely, the judge found that the broker had initially floated a general conformity request but then dropped it, pursuing instead only a specific request for conformity as regards conditions precedent. The renewal was concluded by a brief exchange of emails on 28 June 2019 with no general conformity term applied.

Rectification demands a clear, concluded accord that the document has failed to give effect to. A broker’s subjective belief that a broader agreement existed, however genuinely held, is insufficient.

Pandemic exclusion bites

With rectification off the table, the claimants conceded that the 2019 Global Policy’s Phase 5/6 pandemic exclusion barred all their claims under that policy. The construction issues regarding the 2018 Global Policy were therefore academic, though the Court nonetheless addressed them. The defendants argued that an 'atypical pneumonia' exclusion in the 2018 Policy, grouped alongside SARS and avian flu, should be read broadly to capture COVID-19.

The Court rejected this firmly, finding that the term 'atypical pneumonia' had a specific and well-established scientific meaning referring to particular bacterial pathogens such as Mycoplasma and Legionella. It was striking that the clause made no mention of swine flu or MERS (two of the most prominent recent pandemic threats) which pointed away from any intention to target pandemics as a class. The lesson for insurers is a simple one: if pandemic cover is intended to be excluded, pandemic language should be used.

Local policies, local problems

Both the Hungarian and Romanian policies were found to link business interruption cover to physical property damage. Government-imposed travel bans and operational restrictions provided no such trigger. A one-year contractual time bar under the Hungarian Policy also fell away: the updated general conditions purportedly containing it had never been provided to the claimants before inception and were therefore not validly incorporated under Hungarian law.

What insurers should take away

The judgment reinforces four practical points for insurers:

1. Rectification remains a high bar: Objective evidence of a concluded accord is essential.
2. Disease exclusions using specific scientific terminology will be construed narrowly. Pandemic language should be used if broad pandemic risks are intended to be excluded.
3. Business interruption cover expressed as an extension of property damage cover provides a genuine defence where losses arise from government restrictions rather than physical damage.
4. Insurers operating multi-jurisdictional programmes must ensure local general terms and conditions are properly incorporated under the relevant local law.