Following the recent decision
in Knightly v Dailey and Ors, Elite welcomes the decision that an opponent can
no longer simply rely on the fact that where a BTE insurance policy is
discovered later on in proceedings, an ATE policy taken out for the same claim
is automatically deemed unrecoverable.
Until this ruling, this has
been a common feature in a large number of settlements. In future, for the
defendant to argue successfully that an ATE insurance premium is unrecoverable
in light of the presence of a BTE insurance policy, they will have to ensure
they can justify the BTE policy was completely suitable for the client’s
specific requirements and that there was a certain level of disregard to
enquiries in respect of the existence of BTE insurance.
