Coronavirus: Business Interruption Insurance

Multiple policies may have been structured to provide greater limits or broader coverage than what might have been available from one policy. You should contact your broker or insurer(s) or any related agent to obtain a full explanation of your total coverage.

It is possible to have business interruption coverage under another type of insurance policy. For example, there may be available coverage in policies that cover perils arising out of actions by civil authorities or interruption of your supply chain. Business interruption coverage may also be part of a package of multiple coverages that have been combined or are contained in a Special Multi-Peril or Business Owners policy.

You should contact your broker to obtain an explanation of related coverage in other types of policies you may hold. Any insurer or its agent whose policy you purchased should explain whether it provides business interruption coverage.

As explained above, business interruption coverage requires a related property damage. For a contingent business interruption insurance policy, that property damage can be on someone else’s property but causes your business interruption. One example could be that a fire in a building on your street has closed the street to traffic and prevented your employees from coming to the office.

As with regular business interruption insurance policies, coverage can vary and you should consult your broker or insurer or its agent.

It is unlikely that a current business interruption policy has contemplated the coronavirus specifically. However, you should check to see if your policy has an exclusion that would disable coverage for an incident triggered by an epidemic or pandemic, which might apply as the COVID-19 situation evolves. Also, any claim would still need to be related to your property damage for coverage to be triggered.

Insurers typically do not write coverage for known events for which the extent of potential damage is not easily understood, although it is possible to insure specialty risks such as business interruption due to COVID-19 in the Excess Lines market. Because the Excess Lines market is not regulated by the Department of Financial Services, we do not recommend it - there is much less regulatory protection for consumers in that market and the cost may be excessive. You should discuss any potential purchase in the Excess Lines market with your broker or insurance consultant.

As explained above, business interruption coverage requires a related property damage. Fear of COVID-19 alone is unlikely to trigger business interruption insurance coverage.

The State of Emergency declaration does not change the terms of your business interruption policy.  It does, however, indicate the serious attention that the Governor has directed all State agencies to give to COVID-19.  As a result, the Department of Financial Services is focused on consumers having the greatest amount of knowledge about their business interruption insurance.