re: French Quarter restaurant suing Lloyd’s of London

Infectious disease is neither a specifically named coverage or a specifically excluded loss.

quote:

---

Infectious disease business interruption claims are most definitely uncharted waters. Name the last infectious disease business interruption lawsuit smartie pants. I’ll hang up and listen.

---

How communicable diseases changed business interruption insurance

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 put insurance companies on notice.

After Mandarin Oriental International Ltd. received $16 million from its insurers to pay for business interruption losses due to SARS, policies were quickly updated to exclude certain types of disasters — specifically communicable diseases.

In another SARS-related case, the Court of Final Appeal ruled the insurance company’s liability was limited to the amount of disruption caused after the contagious disease was “required by law to be notified to an authority.”

This “trigger date” limits the amount of payment a carrier has to pay to the insured, even if the disruption began before the official reporting date. On January 8,2020, COVID-19 was included in the Prevention and Control of Disease Regulation 2020 and the Prevention and Control of Disease Ordinance, making it a notifiable disease.

But after SARS, the insurance industry began to exclude losses incurred by communicable disease in most policies. The only coverage that pays for such losses are specifically pre-negotiated.

LINK