Insurance and recovery

Hospitality recovery and insurance in 2021

The welcomed news last week on the Governments Routemap has seen a raft of plans from sections of the hospitality to try and get back to normal in the second half of 2021

However, despite the positivity, the announcements from Live music operators for the Reading and Leeds festivals outline a major problem over the lack of insurance cover.

Despite the headlines, events far and wide are unlikely to proceed unless they can get cover. The owners of the Reading and Leeds festival have contacted Government and asked them to step in cover their events, seemingly no commercial cover exists or if it does, not at a commercial rate the operators can afford to live with.

The gaps in business insurance will hold back growth for businesses in the hospitality sector and this was something PAS warned about way back in April 2020. Back then we urged all business owners to write to their MP’s as we predicted an issue with a lack of business confidence in insurance. It seems our fears are well-founded and given the lack of action by the Government to tackle insurance in the last 12 months, just as the UK tries to open up the recovery may be derailed completely. Further, it might be only possible for the very largest organizations to operate in a post-pandemic world as they get a leg up from the Government, or take a risk and self-insure.

Notably, if only large operators can trade “normally” because of the insurance failure and inaction then this opens up an extremely anti-competitive landscape which will sound the death knell for even more small independent businesses and cultural events.

So write now demand action from your MP on insurance failure, download a template HERE

To contact PAS click HERE