Businesses Suffering COVID-19 Losses Should Notify Their Insurance Companies of Claims
Business Law Articles
By Casey L. Gocel
Mandelbaum Salsburg P.C.
Roseland, New Jersey
Many businesses are suffering losses caused by COVID-19. These losses can arise from various reasons, including business interruption resulting in a loss of business income, extra expenses, lost access to property, lost rent, lost supply or distribution chains, and bodily injury to employees or customers.
Many of these losses are, or may be, covered by the businesses’ existing insurance policies. Depending upon the nature of the losses, claims may arise under various types of policies, including:
- Commercial Property policies
- Commercial General Liability policies
- Environmental policies
- Business interruption policies
- Employers’ liability policies
- Workers’ compensation policies
- Employment practices liability policies
- Directors & officers liability policies
- Errors & omissions policies
The most cost-effective way for the business to protect its rights under the policies is to immediately file notices of claims for the losses under their policies. It appears that this pandemic will result in such significant losses that there will be substantial pressure to find coverage where precedent might dictate none now exists. In addition, there is pressure to enact laws requiring insurance companies to ignore otherwise applicable exclusions to provide coverage, with the understanding that the insurance company would be later reimbursed for those payments by governmental entities. For that reason, no one should assume they have no coverage just because they understand that they have no coverage or that the insurance companies are denying those claims.
Mandelbaum Salsburg is prepared to assist its business clients with filing these claim notices. Clients should:
1. Keep track of all losses arising from the coronavirus, including retaining all relevant documentation.
2. Assemble their entire portfolio of insurance policies. If you do not have digital copies of the policies, they can be obtained from your insurance broker.
3. Immediately contact us. We will conduct an interview by Zoom to understand the nature of your losses and the breadth of your insurance coverage. We will provide you with a cost-effective fixed price quote to review your insurance policies and prepare the claim notice letters. We will review your insurance policies. We will prepare claim notice letters designed to maximize your coverage.
4. Once we receive responses from your insurance companies to the claim notice letters, we will advise you on how best to proceed to obtain coverage for your losses.