Insurance companies may not cover businesses that do not comply with SR clarification.

[WarriorN]

Starting a new thread just to highlight this. Something worth pointing out to employers.

would also be great if anyone in insurance could give their perspective.

I know my place of work has a building manager who conducts a rigorous health and safety risk assessment. Presumably this is linked to their insurance.

The way companies and organisations will be forced to comply with the Supreme Court judgement is via their insurers. They have to, by law, have Employers’ Liability Insurance. If they don’t implement the ruling, their insurance company will simply cancel cover.

You can’t get insurance to cover you for breaking the law. Underwriters are usually pretty sharp on that kind of thing, because it opens them up to the risk of expensive lawsuits - and we’ve had several examples recently even before the SC made it explicit.

Ben Cooper: https://x.com/bencooper/status/1916215281715974650?s=46&t=A2fpFNgDRyXF2d6ye97wEA

I've said for a while that insurance will be a key thing in ending the madness.

Money talks and insurance is about exposure to risk. An ideology based on nonsense and a lack of safeguarding, is too big a risk. Insurance is based on the real world not the imagined world.

Someone might want to tell Wetherspoons….

Exactly. There's no way they've got an impact assessment to show they've assessed the risk of mixed sex toilets and that it's negligible. Particularly when the toilets are so isolated and alcohol is a factor.

The 'it's like Section 28 and it's all going to be overturned by the ECtHR' cope was on that thread, I see.

The 'it' being the Supreme Court ruling, of course. Imagine pinning all your hopes on the Fox Killer.

It’s similar for any company with bank loans - they make repeating representations that they aren’t breaching any laws, and so non-compliance with the EA could result in default of their loans.

That said, because most banks and law firms are all so Stonewalled, it may be that if the banks are set on defying the law too, they could decide to grant a temporary waiver for sex discrimination only(!) and only in relation to trans people, pending the release of final guidance from the EHRC.

It still won’t be a great look for the banks to be ok with their clients knowingly removing women’s rights, but this would largely be occurring behind the scenes, and I could definitely see that happening in reality for a short period before they lose their nerve and decide to comply.

Many big insurers are pretty Stonewalled too, so they might take a similar approach initially, although honestly, given the EHRC’s interim guidance, it’s already obvious what the full guidance is likely to say.

No company can really get away with issuing a statement saying “I still don’t understand” following the crystal clear EHRC interim update, and as inclusive as banks and insurers want to appear, there’s still obviously a limit to the financial risk they’re prepared to take on in the name of trans rights.

As someone has commented on Twitter; the gender surgery madness will end when insurance companies will no longer insure surgeons for the surgeries…

But I wonder whether many of these banks and insurers, when it comes down to legal compliance and bottom line risk, may actually reverse out. Now that the SC makes it clear that the guidance they’ve followed is wrong, they themselves are at risk of defaulting on their own insurance and financial loans, too, if they don’t make all their policies internally and externally EA compliant. It’s a house of cards - it will only take one institution to go bust because its loans are called in for it all to come tumbling down.

I suspect there are corporate lawyers in the city at the moment who are desperately trying to get board members to wake up to the reality of the SC decision and ECHR guidance this morning.

It’ll still take work to get this to happen. Prior to this, the risk factors of mixed sex provision have been known, but ignored/not caused higher premiums. Granted, the entire ecosystem on DEI has framed this as ‘inclusion’ = good thing etc. The UKSC ruling brings clarity that means ‘inclusion’ breaches single sex requirements & there is the potential for policy T&Cs to be breached. However, I would anticipate there will be DEI enthusiasts working furiously for a work around that they think maintains the status quo.

Like everything else, it’s going to take effort (mostly by insistent women) to make businesses open their eyes/ears & see the need to ensure female only means female only.

I do think we’re going to see a mid point where we lose a lot of female only in an attempt to get round this, so we’ll have to litigate to move this beyond that, and secure female only provision properly.

No one who has bought into DEI inclusion demands is going to retreat from their unlawful positions willingly.

And are they really going to commit to spending money on making loos self-contained? I'd like if my local just fixed the broken locks!

Absolutely - luckily the SC judgment itself is very clear too, so I think the law firms will eventually come around, and everyone else will be forced to follow their advice.

Honestly though, I don’t think it will be the boards who need to be persuaded, as most were just doing the whole Stonewall thing as a business imperative and for grad recruitment anyway. There will certainly be a fair few discussions in firms this week, but I think the bottom line will largely be most partners taking the view that the law is clear, and the more junior staff pushing back.

I find it terrifying that it’s the law firms that can’t be trusted to follow the law.
The one’s that fully understand the penalties of not doing so 😳

To fair to them, it wasn’t crystal clear how (if at all) the GRA interacted with the EA before the SC ruling.

But obviously, it is now, so they have no excuse any more.

Your rigorous building manager - the best kind - should be aware that building regs have a specification for a 'universal toilet' i.e. the kind that may be provided in addition to the obligatory single-sex toilets, space permitting; or instead of single-sex toilets, but only because of space constraints:

“universal toilet” means toilet facilities which—
are provided in a fully enclosed room which contains a water-closet and washbasin and hand-drying facilities

The Building (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024

So a unisex toilet can't just be a women's or men's toilet with a new badge stuck over the old one.

Yes we do have a few of those. All compliant.

Knowing my building manager, he wouldn’t take any BS either….

I have no idea how this might influence parts of NHS given they effectively self-insure for some many risks.

Good point, but.. SR clarity. They’d be a bit silly to try to ignore

Wouldn't it be lovely to go around inspecting 'unisex' toilets which are just re-badged single-sex ones and telling the management

'Sorry mate, it'll all have to come down, it's against building regs - The Building (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2024 Part T 2 (a).'
and then take a clicky three-colour biro from the er.. chest pocket of your shirt to fill in a very official form that they'll have to comply with..

Oh the power!
Can I identify as a Building Inspector? I'll supply my own three-colour clicky biro!

But they self-insure via regional or national mutual organisations staffed by people who are suppose to experts in insurance risks and the relevant law; and these mutual organisations regularly advise trusts how to comply to avoid risk. Such mutual organisations will be a force for sanity, especially if people keep up the lawsuits against recidivists.

Under the Licensing Act 2003, licensed premises are required to provide adequate separate sanitary accommodation for male and female patrons. This includes ensuring that facilities are kept in good order and are properly maintained, ventilated, and supplied with necessary requisites. The exact number and type of facilities depend on factors such as the number of customers and staff, as outlined in British Standard BS 6465-1:2006+A1:2009 .

Brilliant. Insurance has a habit of reordering wayward behaviour.

I can’t believe that around a century after female campaigners first secured the provision of single sex public toilets for women, in order to allow the female half of the species to be involved in and contribute to public life, we are having to watch public toilet provision skew heavily towards the types that favour the male half of the species and we are having to fight to secure public toilets for women again!

Why are women constantly having to refight the same battles?!

I think we need a series of stickers tbh.

quoting various relevant building regs and the law.

Are banks (or any other companies) going to disclose in their annual reports in the section on Corporate Compliance & Responsibility that they have decided to ignore sections of UK law thereby opening themselves up to potential legal action which may impact their financials in the future? Will their auditor sign off on that? What will investors have to say if they are listed companies admitting they are making themselves potentially liable to legal action?