SEISS UK: Self-employed to benefit following ‘great victory’ in supreme court ruling | Personal Finance | Finance
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SEISS grants will be paying out once more over the coming weeks as the third application deadline is quickly approaching. As the summer approaches, Rishi Sunak has assured fourth sets of grants will also be issued but thus far, the Chancellor has refused to change eligibility rules which have reportedly excluded millions of workers from being able to access state support.
However, some much needed good news befell the self-employment sector this week as the Supreme court ruled insurance companies must pay out to businesses who have lost out as a result of coronavirus.
According to analysis from Cathreyn Selby, the head of the dispute resolution team at law firm Nelsons, the ramifications of this could be huge with the ruling potentially impacting around 700 types of policies, 60 insurers and 370,000 small businesses and policyholders.
Catheryn commented on the ruling: “The Supreme Court’s ruling is a great victory and undoubtedly positive for many of the struggling small and medium-sized firms that held business interruption insurance and were forced to close during the first lockdown.
“Taken as a whole, the judgement means that many firms will be able to seek compensation for the disruption caused to their business by the pandemic.”
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Adam went on to examine the ruling and detailed that, from a legal standpoint, it should apply to the self-employed.
Additionally, Adam explained any claimed support from the state should not affect one’s eligibility for insurance payments.
He continued: “This ruling should also support those who are self-employed and have appropriate business interruption cover.
“Like all small businesses, they will still be protected and Government funding/relief packages and insurance cover should be treated as entirely independent of each other.”
Luke Davis, the CEO of IW Capital, added to this: “While this ruling affects mostly small businesses claiming business interruption insurance it should come as a piece of good news for the self-employed people who have been, in many cases, the hardest hit by trading restrictions throughout several periods of lockdown.
“Decisions such as this will likely be used in other, similar, cases and so could mean that insurance policies and support held by the self-employed may be easier to argue for. There still needs to be much more support for this section but ambition and resilience is a key characteristic of the UK’s entrepreneur and self-employed community and there seems to be brighter times on the horizon.”
Claims for a third grant must be made by January 29.
These grants will be worth 80 percent of average monthly trading profits, capped at £7,500 in total.
The money will not need to be paid back but it will be subject to income tax and self-employed National Insurance.
A fourth set of grants will become available soon, covering February to April and details on this will be released in “due course”.
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