KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Property insurance companies are denying coronavirus related claims, and that’s prompting some metro area businesses to join others across the nation in filing suit.
Policy holders say what’s been happening during the last seven weeks is why they bought insurance.
The Grunauer restaurant is part of a class action lawsuit filed against Cincinnati Insurance Company for denying its business interruption coverage claim.
Owner Nicholas Grunauer just celebrated his 10th anniversary in the Freighthouse District.
During that time he’s always paid for so-called “all risk” business interruption insurance, but never had to use it, until the public health emergency shut down his restaurant on March 15.
Since that time, he’s laid off about 50 of his employees, and has suffered losses totaling tens of thousands of dollars each week.
“We have a family restaurant in Europe and saw a lot of this news coming and started reading that these shutdowns were more than likely imminent,” Grunauer said. “I started looking through my insurance policy because that’s the first thing you think. We are going to be interrupted. I assume there is coverage, because that is why you pay for insurance in a highly risky environment.”
This is brewing to be a big battle nationally as insurers claim that their coverage only applies if a shutdown is based on physical damage to a business.
The CEO of Chubb Insurance recently wrote in the Wall Street Journal that business interruption policies were not priced to include virus-related claims and would bankrupt the insurance industry.
A lawyer for Grunauer says all risk coverage must cite specific exclusions, and in this case, no exceptions are listed for pandemics, viruses or communicable diseases.
Ultimately, federal courts will sort all of this out.
But already insurers and businesses have begun lobbying the U.S. Congress to support their position on COVID-19 claims.
For more information on joining the class action lawsuits involving business interruption insurance claims go to: Businessloss.com.
