Atradius welcomes new insurance scheme

 

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that the UK Government has launched a temporary, government-backed reinsurance scheme to help businesses recover from the impacts of Covid-19.  

Welcomed by leading trade credit insurer, Atradius (www.atradius.co.uk), the Scheme is a recognition of the pivotal role played by credit insurers in modern trade and provides support to thousands of businesses who rely on trade credit insurance.

Under the temporary Scheme, the Government will act as a reinsurer to the trade credit insurance industry, sharing the risk of losses arising from business insolvency with insurers.  The Scheme is structured with the purpose of supporting companies to resume trade and enable supply chains to function normally, and reflects similar state-backed support being developed across Europe and in Canada, and enables insurers to provide capacity based on normal underwriting practices for the otherwise sound businesses whose solvency is temporarily affected by the Covid-19 crisis.  

"We have recognized from the very beginning of this Covid-19 crisis that the consequences for trade would be significant and we very much welcome this positive and supportive response from the Government,” says Alun Sweeney, Regional Director UK & Ireland at Atradius.

“As an industry, we remain aligned in regard to the need for this kind of action and together with our colleagues at the Association of British Insurers we have been committed to make it a reality.  The Scheme is an essential measure to help boost our economic recovery, help protect the supply chain, safeguard jobs, and increase business confidence and will make a real difference to the thousands of businesses who rely on the security that trade credit insurance cover provides”.

The launch of the Scheme follows weeks of intensive discussions between the Trade Credit Insurance industry (including Atradius) and the Government. The engagement with Government has been largely led and brokered by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) who have played a significant role in arriving at the successful outcome and delivering a Scheme which we are confident will help UK businesses to navigate the economic challenges ahead as we emerge from lockdown.

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