Liability insurance -Aggregations

(Lloyds TSB General Insurance Holdings Ltd v Lloyds Bank Group Insurance Co Ltd; Abbey National plc v Lee, November 2001, unreported)

The all too familiar problem of aggregations has again been considered by the Court of Appeal in two joined cases, Lloyds TSB General Insurance Holdings Ltd v Lloyds Bank Group Insurance Co Ltd and Abbey National plc v Lee , November 2001, unreported, to be reported in [2002] Lloyd’s Rep IR. The aggregation issue in these cases arose in the context of pensions misselling. The Court of Appeal upheld the ruling of Moore-Bick J at first instance (see [2001] Lloyd’s Rep IR 236 ) the effect of which was to allow the claimant insurance company to aggregate the numerous small claims made against it by victims of misselling so that only one deductible had to be borne by it. Both cases were on assumed facts, and the issue was purely the construction of the aggregation provisions. The sum involved was some £100,000,000.