The first National Lottery draw took place on November 19, 1994, hosted by Noel Edmonds and Anthea Turner, and resulted in seven winners sharing £5.8m.
In 1994, nobody really knew what the appeal of the National Lottery might be. Since then, it has become such that a special insurance policy has been created to respond to ‘winning’ scenarios, this being one of the more unusual types of business interruption policies.
Lottery Syndicate insurance was created because of the risks that a lottery win by a syndicate of employees can pose to a business. We’re all aware of the phrase ‘overnight success’ and that is literally what can happen. A syndicate of employees could win big, in such a way that the employees really never have to return to work again. An immediate hole in the workforce can result and that could be accompanied by a skills gap.
Such a situation can instantly pose a threat to a business’s contracts and ability to deliver its products and services. Whilst a larger organisation can perhaps cope a little better, the simultaneous loss of a number of employees could be a crushing blow for a smaller or medium-sized business.
In effect, this would be somewhat of an emergency, especially if the winning employees decided not to provide any notice.
Lottery Syndicate insurance provides the insured business with the means to receive financial compensation should their business be hit by an employees’ lottery win. The funds made available through the policy enable the insured business to hire temporary staff, to tide them over, and also cover off the recruitment costs that are suddenly incurred.
Camelot, the UK lottery operator say around one-in-five jackpots are won by syndicates and there have been some impressive wins by syndicates of work colleagues in the past. So, if your business could be exposed by a mass walkout overnight – a rarer but still perfectly possible form of business interruption – insurance to cover you for this eventuality might be worth considering. The alternative, of course, is to join the syndicate yourself, but you might not wish to just abandon your business, despite your windfall.
To find out more about this type of more unusual business interruption insurance – and other policies that can prevent your business suffering, should an unforeseen event stop it from operating as normal – please get in touch!
Business interruption, however, it occurs, can be a blow for a business, so having the right insurance in place, to compensate you, is good contingency planning.