The High Court of Australia has declined four appeal applications related to business interruption cover during the pandemic after hearing brief legal presentations on Friday.

The court declined to hear three appeals arising from the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) second test case and also refused an application by The Star Entertainment Group in its dispute with Chubb and other insurers.

The outcome means Full Court judgments largely backing insurers in declining cover continue to stand, but insurers have lost on the issue of whether JobKeeper payments should be taken into account to reduce payments where a policy does response.

ICA says the High Court’s decision marks a significant milestone and largely draws to a close the formal test case process concerning covid related business interruption matters.

“We recognise this has been a particularly difficult time for many small businesses and we sought the courts’ determinations and funded these test cases in order to establish the principles necessary in order to minimise disputes,” ICA CEO Andrew Hall said.

“Insurers are pleased that, coupled with the ruling in the first test case, today’s determination provides guidance to the industry and policyholders, to help facilitate fair and consistent determinations on claims.”

Insurers and brokers will be communicating directly and quickly with policyholders who have made claims affected by the judgment to explain next steps, ICA says.

“Claims will ultimately be determined based on the applicable principles of the final judgment in this test case and that of the first test case, as well as the wording of the particular policy of the policyholder,” it said.

The test case process started two years ago, with the first test case on outdated policy wordings citing the Quarantine Act going against insurers.

The second involving 10 claims disputes looked at a broader range of issues including proximity of an outbreak to a business and the impact of government orders.

The initial decision was handed down in the Federal Court in September last year, with appeals on five of the matters then going to the Full Court, which delivered its judgment in February.

See ANALYSIS.