Meta YouTube submission

The adverse rulings against Meta and YouTube, which found the tech giants liable for harms associated with addictive platform design, have far reaching implications for insurers and the broader risk landscape.

Liability exposures linked to technology platforms may well drive a surge in claims across multiple lines of business, including general liability, directors’ and officers’, professional indemnity and cyber policies. Underwriters should be aware that further litigation is likely, as claimant law firms look to use these precedents to bring similar claims against other social media companies and technology providers.

Insurers should review existing policy wordings with care, paying particular attention to exclusions for bodily injury arising from digital products, mental health-related claims and regulatory liabilities.

These rulings could well signal a rise in claim frequency and severity in technology related lines. Reinsurers, too, will need to assess their aggregate exposures. As the legal and regulatory environment continues to evolve, proactive engagement with these risks will be essential.

The potential impact in the UK warrants particular attention. The US verdicts could influence the approach of English courts to similar claims, especially given the growing judicial and regulatory focus on online harms. The Online Safety Act 2023 and Ofcom’s evolving regulatory framework are creating new duties and liabilities for technology platforms operating in the UK, which may in turn expand the scope of insured exposures.

Perhaps most significantly, insurers should be preparing for the prospect of Group Litigation Orders being sought in England and Wales on behalf of users (particularly children and young people) alleging harm from addictive social media design. The UK’s GLO mechanism provides a well-established procedural route for consolidating large numbers of individual claims, and the combination of third-party litigation funding, a sympathetic regulatory environment and heightened public concern about children’s mental health creates fertile ground for such actions. Insurers should to plan for this eventuality.

In terms of immediate risk assessment, insurers should be asking whether current policy wordings adequately exclude or limit coverage for claims arising from social media addiction or digital product-related harms. A thorough portfolio review will identify which policyholders have material exposure to social media or technology platform risks and how those risks are currently classified and rated. Insurers should also be monitoring whether any early notifications or circumstances have been reported that could give rise to claims linked to social media addiction or similar causes of action.

Insurers may need to adjust pricing or apply sub-limits for technology and social media risks to keep pace with the changing claims landscape. They should also consider that claims could cut across multiple policy lines and ensure that overall exposure is carefully managed.

Ongoing regulatory horizon scanning, both domestically and internationally, will be critical and insurers should consider proactively engaging with technology sector policyholders on risk management and mitigation measures, including compliance with UK-specific regulatory obligations.