Commercial Property and Business Interruption Insurance Coverage Issues: The Next COVID-19 Hotspot?

摘要

In late 2019, the World Health Organization noted that "Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province" (World Health Organization 2020). Since that time, researchers identified a novel coronavirus. The highly contagious virus has spread around the globe. As of this writing, the over 15 million cases have resulted in over 600,000 deaths globally (Johns Hopkins 2020). In order to slow the transmission of the virus national, state and municipal governments have resorted to "Social Distancing." Non-essential businesses have closed in compliance with various civil orders. The impact to businesses has been billions of dollars of lost revenue. As a result, many companies have sought coverage under various insurance policies. This paper will: review some of the early COVID-19 Business Interruption Coverage and Commercial Property coverage lawsuits; discuss some common policy language in these polices; and suggest how insurance coverage for property and business pandemic risk may evolve.