Insurance companies are refusing to pay "business interruption loss" claims filed by small businesses owners around the U.S. grapple with the financial losses who are suffering—and the suffering yet to come—as millions shut down and lose business under government orders to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Insurance companies are claiming they're unable to cover those losses.
The groups—including National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, American Property Casualty Insurance Association, Reinsurance Association of America, and the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers—said insurance companies are not "designed" to cover losses caused by a pandemic and called on the government to provide the relief.
"Insurance coverage works by spreading risk, but that model simply cannot account for a situation in which losses are catastrophic and nearly universal. Standard business interruption policies do not, and were not designed to, provide coverage against communicable diseases such as COVID-19, and as such, were not actuarially priced to do so," the groups say.
Cynthia Ward Wikstrom, campaigns director for grassroots network Main Street Alliance (MSA), told Common Dreams. "Insurance companies are some of our more profitable companies that should be picking up some of burden..."
The insurance industry in the US is the largest in the world in terms of revenue. Since 2011, the annual revenue exceeded the $1.2 trillion mark. ‘We can’t save you, we won’t save you’ is just another example that exploitative capitalism is the real problem.
The groups—including National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, American Property Casualty Insurance Association, Reinsurance Association of America, and the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers—said insurance companies are not "designed" to cover losses caused by a pandemic and called on the government to provide the relief.
"Insurance coverage works by spreading risk, but that model simply cannot account for a situation in which losses are catastrophic and nearly universal. Standard business interruption policies do not, and were not designed to, provide coverage against communicable diseases such as COVID-19, and as such, were not actuarially priced to do so," the groups say.
Cynthia Ward Wikstrom, campaigns director for grassroots network Main Street Alliance (MSA), told Common Dreams. "Insurance companies are some of our more profitable companies that should be picking up some of burden..."
According to the Denver Post, after the SARS outbreak in 2003, many insurers stipulated in their policies that business losses due to a public health crisis would no longer be covered.
"When the industry is slammed with a particular unforeseen risk, they'll exclude it from future coverages," attorney Finley Harckham told the Post.
The insurance industry in the US is the largest in the world in terms of revenue. Since 2011, the annual revenue exceeded the $1.2 trillion mark. ‘We can’t save you, we won’t save you’ is just another example that exploitative capitalism is the real problem.
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