Businesses Are Losing Their Covid-19 Lawsuits
Insurance companies won’t be paying for business interruptions caused by the coronavirus. This was predictable.
In fact, no karaoke tonight.
Photographer: Octavio Jones/Getty ImagesRemember last year’s kerfuffle over whether providers of business interruption insurance would have to pay when local Covid-19 rules forced proprietors to close? The verdict is now in ... and it hasn’t gone well for business owners. In fact, according to the University of Pennsylvania Law School, which has developed a tool to track Covid-related litigation, the insurers have overwhelmingly won.
The controversy arose after most state governments responded to the pandemic with shut-down orders. Many business owners demanded that their insurers compensate them for lost income, but the claims were routinely denied. Business owners sued, and I predicted in this space that they would mostly lose. Most business interruption insurance policies simply don’t cover pandemics.