Lloyds 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: The absence of a training or monitoring system, even though an independent breach of the rules, was legally irrelevant to the civil liability of the TSB companies. It is wrong to allow doubts about the possibly practical application of the clause to produce a construction which undermines the balance of the clause. Each of the claims did not arise from a ‘single act or omission’. Nor did each of them arise from a ‘related series of acts or omissions’. Each arose from a separate contravention of rule 3.4(4)(a). The preliminary point raised was answered in favour of the insurers

Judges:

Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Hoffmann, Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough, Lord Millett, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe

Citations:

[2003] UKHL 48, [2003] Lloyds Rep IR 623, [2003] 4 All ER 43, [2003] 2 All ER (Comm) 665, [2003] Pens LR 315

Links:

Bailii, House of Lords

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Citing:

CitedCox 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 . .
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 . .
CitedMunicipal Mutual Insurance Limited v Sea Insurance Company Limited and Others CA 26-Mar-1998
The unifying event in an aggregation clause in an insurance policy was expressed in very general terms: ‘all occurrences of a series consequent on or attributable to one source or original cause.’
Held: As long as one could find any act, event . .
CitedCaudle and Others v Sharp; Grove v Sharp CA 1995
A series of 32 asbestosis reinsurance contracts had been underwritten by Mr Outhwaite him without doing any proper assessment of the risk. The insurance had the wording: ‘each and every loss and/or occurrence . . and/or series of losses and/or . .
At First InstanceLloyds TSB General Insurance Holdings Ltd and others v Lloyds Bank Group Insurance Company Ltd ComC 6-Oct-2000
. .
Appeal fromLloyds TSB General Insurance Holdings Limited (and Others), Abbey National Plc v Lloyds Bank Group Insurance Company Limited, Lee (and Others) CA 8-Nov-2001
Construction of aggregation clauses in insurance contracts . .

Cited by:

CitedAIG Europe Ltd v Woodman and Others SC 22-Mar-2017
The parties disputed the effect of a clause aggregating claims for the purposes of limiting an insurer’s liability under professional negligence insurance.
Held: the claims of each group of investors arise from acts or omissions in a series of . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Insurance, Financial Services

Updated: 24 July 2022; Ref: scu.185219