Covid-19: complaints information for small businesses

Guidance on specific types of complaint

• CBILS (Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme)

  The Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CBILS) is a government initiative to provide financial support to small and medium-sized businesses who are affected as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. You can find out more about the scheme itself on the British Business Bank's website.

  • The scheme is available through the British Business Bank’s accredited lenders, listed on the British Business Bank's website. It supports a range of business finance products, including term loans, overdrafts, invoice finance and asset finance facilities. 
  • We can help small businesses with complaints about most kinds of CBILS products.
  • Find out more about the types of businesses we can help.  

• BBLS (Bounce Back Loan Scheme)

  The Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) is a government initiative to provide financial support to small businesses affected as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. You can find out more about the scheme itself on the British Business Bank’s website.

  • The scheme is available through the British Business Bank’s accredited lenders and partners, listed on the British Business Bank’s website.  
  • We can help small businesses with complaints about BBLS.
  • Find out more about the type of businesses we can help. 

• Business interruption (protection) insurance

  Business interruption insurance covers loss of income suffered by a business by having to close due to certain events. 

  We will consider the Supreme Court’s judgement in the FCA’s business interruption test case and continue to take relevant law, including case law, into account when resolving complaints. If small businesses are unhappy with how their financial provider has handled their complaint, they should come to us and we’ll see if we can help.

  In all cases we’re in touch with the individual businesses and insurers to keep them informed, and we continue to engage with a range of stakeholders on this issue, including those representing small businesses.

  • In order to determine whether you can make a claim under your business interruption insurance, check your policy terms to see what cover is provided. If you had arranged the cover through a broker, you may want to consult them too. The FCA has published a policy checker on its website, that you can use as a general guide to find out if your policy might cover business interruption losses caused by Covid-19.
  • If the policy doesn’t include pandemic cover, it may still provide cover for loss of income as a result of people not being able to access the business. This is often called ‘restricted access’ or ‘non-damage business interruption’ cover.
  • The government has provided guidance in relation to commercial insurance policies. And you may also want to refer to information from the Association of British Insurers. 
  • If you think your claim could fall within the cover offered or if you are unsure, contact your insurer. Keep records of what’s happened and gather evidence of any losses.
  • We’d expect any insurer to remember its duties to deal with claims fairly and promptly, and not to reject a claim unreasonably. The FCA has also set out its expectations for insurers where cover is provided for within the policy.
  • This is a very unique situation. So when considering the relevant policy terms we would expect insurers to think carefully about what’s fair and reasonable in each case, taking into account the unprecedented situation created by Covid-19.
  • If your insurer or broker has made a mistake or treated you unfairly and you’ve lost out as a result, we have the power to put things right. Usually, we’ll tell the business to put you back in the position you’d be in if they hadn’t got things wrong. We might also decide the business should pay you interest on top of this compensation. If applying interest, we expect the business to calculate the number of days you didn’t have the money, and apply a suitable rate of interest (typically 8%) to the amount they refund you. Read more about our approach to calculating compensation. 

• Fraud and scams

  • Watch out for scams related to Covid-19. These may take many forms, but fraudsters are targeting small businesses by pretending to be from local councils, government bodies or their banks. These scams are often sophisticated and some are using information about the Covid-19 financial support available to small businesses to make it look like they are genuine.
  • Some companies are charging upfront fees to help small businesses apply for loans and government grants when this isn’t necessary. 
  • You can read more about how to avoid fraud and scams, and protect your personal information, on our main site.
  • If you think you have become a victim of a scam, the first thing you should do is contact your bank or finance provider and explain what’s happened. If you’re not happy with what they say, then you can make a complaint. If you’re not sure how to do this, contact us and we can help. The financial business should look into things and reply within 15 days. If you’re not happy with their response, or if it doesn’t reply in time, you can bring your complaint to us. We’ll check it’s something we can deal with, and if it is, we’ll investigate and let you and the financial business know what we think.