Cox v Bankside Members Agency Ltd and Others: CA 16 May 1995

Successful Lloyds names were entitled to enforce their claims in the normal time sequence. The transfer of the rights of the insured against the insurer under section 1(1) the 1930 Act takes place on the event of insolvency, even if the insured’s liability to the third party has not yet been established. In handling claims, instructing solicitors and so forth, the insurers act as agents for the company and are entitled to reimbursement for their expenses.
Lord Justice Saville said: ‘Under the Act the rights of the insured against the insurer are transferred to the third party on (in the case of an insured company) the making of a winding up order etc.: see s.1(b) of the Act. It follows from this that a statutory transfer can take place before the obligation of the insurer to pay arises i.e. before the liability of the insured has been established. In such an event, since it is clear from the authorities that the third party is to be put in no better position than the insured, the third party does not obtain the right to immediate payment until the liability of the insured is established. .
That right [the right of the third party to immediate payment by the insurers] only arises when, in each case, the claim is established, just as that right, while owned by the insured, would also arise only when the particular claim in question was established. It is only when that right arises that the insurers come under the correlative obligation to make payment. To my mind it follows that as each claim is established (whether before or after the statutory assignment), the right to payment arises and thus the amount of available insurance is in effect diminished, so that when it is exhausted later established claims have no right to an indemnity. . .’

Judges:

Lord Justice Saville

Citations:

Independent 09-Jun-1995, Times 16-May-1995, [1995] 2 Lloyd’s Rep 437

Statutes:

Third Parties (Rights Against Insurers) Act 1930 1(1)(b)

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

Appeal fromCox v Bankside Members Agency Ltd and Others QBD 27-Jan-1995
Some agents had policies against which there were likely to be various calls, either because several claims were being pursued against the same agents by different Lloyd’s Names, or because the policies were group policies covering several agents . .

Cited by:

CitedAXA Reinsurance (UK) Plc v Field HL 12-Sep-1996
The terms originating ’cause’ and ‘event’ are to be differently construed, one means a continuing situation and the other refers to a discrete event.
Under the ‘LMX Spiral’ Lloyds’ syndicates wrote substantial excess of loss business.The cross . .
CitedLloyds TSB General Insurance Holdings and others v Lloyds Bank Group Insurance Company Ltd HL 31-Jul-2003
The applicant had paid out many claims for mis-selling pensions. They sought to claim under their insurance. The claims met the requirements of the principle insurance, but the insurance companies sought to impose a limit by aggregation.
Held: . .
Dicta adoptedFirst National Tricity Finance Ltd v OT Computers Ltd; In re OT Computers Ltd (in administration) CA 25-May-2004
The company had gone into liquidation. They had sold consumer policies as extended warranties on behalf of the claimant. The company had insured its own joint liability under the contracts, and the claimant sought information from the company’s . .
CitedFreakley and Curzon Insurance Ltd v Centre Reinsurance International Company and Another; similar CA 11-Feb-2005
Claims were made for personal injury caused by asbestos. The re-insurers sought declaratory relief against the head insurers, and the administrators of the insolvent company. The administrators sought declarations in turn. Curzon insured the company . .
CitedFreakley and others v Centre Reinsurance International Company and others HL 11-Oct-2006
When it became clear that the company would be financially overwhelmed by asbestos related claims, a voluntary scheme of arrangement was proposed under s425. The House was now asked whether the right to re-imbursement of the company’s lawyers after . .
CitedTeal Assurance Company Ltd v WR Berkley Insurance (Europe) Ltd SC 31-Jul-2013
An international engineering company had several layers of professional indemnity insurance. The top later did not cover claims originating in the US or Canada. The several insurers now disputed apportionment of liability between them. The . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Litigation Practice, Insurance, Legal Professions

Updated: 21 January 2023; Ref: scu.79585