Citing industry sources, a recent Reuters news article revealed that U.S. insurers are moving to strengthen language in policies that cover business losses to protect themselves from future claims related to the coronavirus pandemic or other widespread illnesses that disrupt operations.
Writing for Reuters, financial journalist, Alwyn Scott, reported that new policies and renewals now define terms like "communicable disease" or "microorganism" -- "something existing policies often lacked, and which led to a flood of lawsuits that insurers have so far largely won."
Pandemic-hit U.S. businesses have filed nearly 1,500 lawsuits challenging insurers who denied claims. But, Scott said, "Judges have handed insurers victories by dismissing about 81 percent of the 205 state and federal lawsuits decided so far."
Yet, among just the state decisions, insurers have lost 65 percent of cases when the policies lacked a virus exclusion and 43 percent even when there was an exclusion.
Read the March 5, 2021, article at Reuters.