Brain Training: 10 things you need to know about... the Insurance Act 2015

2. The Act reinforces and clarifies previous legislation, but also includes important changes on disclosure, contractual warranties, and fraudulent claims

3. Policyholders must now disclose all circumstances that a ‘reasonable’ search would uncover, and alert insurers to any issues they might need to follow up

4. The Act also requires risk information to be provided to insurers in a manageable form – rather than as vast swathes of undifferentiated data

5. Where policyholders deliberately or recklessly breach their duty of disclosure, insurers may now decline claims and retain any premiums paid

6. Where a breach was not deliberate or reckless, insurers should treat any claims as they would have had, had information not been missing or incorrect

7. The Act effectively outlaws the ‘basis of contract’ clauses on which some insurers have previously relied to decline claims, based on breach of warranty

8. Insurers will now be required to pay in full all claims where a breach of warranty did not materially increase the risk of whatever loss occurred

9. Insurers may now terminate a contract from the date on which any fraudulent claim is made and retain all premiums paid – but may not decline claims pre-dating any fraud

10. There’s a lot more to it than that. But, with less than a year to go, it’s high time to scrutinise the small print and update your policies and practices accordingly