Are your business losses due to COVID-19 covered by insurance? Let’s find out.

COVID-19 has spread across the United States at an alarming rate and right now the country stands at number one with the highest number of cases and each day keeps on bringing more cases into the light. The impact of the pandemic has been devastating on the economy. Many industries from retail, to entertainment, hospitality, and technology, will face an extremely difficult period for months, if not years.

A lot of small businesses have completely shut down, never to recover from this. With the insurance implications that the virus has caused, business interruption insurance has been in the limelight for its coverages. Many insurance policies and endorsements that offer business interruption insurance also include coverage for “Interruption by Communicable Disease” However, with every insurance provider, the criteria for including COVID-19 under the gamut of communicable diseases may not be the same. one must verify with their respective insurance providers if they consider COVID-19 as “physical damage”.

Following these steps will provide you with an accurate idea about where you stand as an insured entity:

1. Requesting a full-fledged copy of your insurance policy. This will allow you to go through your coverages and inclusions and assess the implications of COVID-19 on your business and whether you can use your insurance to mitigate the damage.
2. The ‘Cause of Loss to Trigger Coverage’ section will help you understand whether your policy covers COVID-19 claims as well.
3. Another important part of the process is to understand the time period of your coverages and to understand the differences between multiple coverages that are part of your insurance policy.

While COVID-19 certainly causes mass confusion in the insurance industry when it comes to coverages and inclusions, there are going to be major changes in policy creation and implementation to understand how does COVID-19 fits into the scheme of things. Until then, there is still confusion regarding the inclusion of COVID-19 and how much help can business interruption insurance be for people who file COVID-19 claims.