On December 13, the North Carolina Supreme Court gave policyholders a partial victory in long-running litigation over business interruption coverage for shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. In North State Deli v. Cincinnati Insurance Co., the court unanimously agreed with the plaintiff restaurants and bars that their insurance coverage for “direct physical loss” included
Notwithstanding insurers’ transparent attempts to convince you otherwise, policyholders may very well have coverage for business interruption losses from COVID-19 under their property policies. Since the start of the pandemic, insurers have tried to weave a narrative that policyholders cannot win coverage suits for business-interruption losses resulting from the pandemic. The opinions to date tell
Confirming the growing split of decisions among federal courts addressing COVID-19 insurance issues, two district courts in the Fifth Circuit differed in their interpretation of virus exclusions, with one denying coverage and the other permitting the policyholder’s claim to proceed.
On November 4, a Mississippi federal district court dismissed a restaurant’s complaint for business interruption
A North Carolina court has required Cincinnati Insurance Company to provide business interruption and extra expense coverage to 16 North Carolina restaurants that lost the use of and access to their properties due to COVID-19 civil authority orders (see North State Deli, LLC, et al. v. Cincinnati Insurance Co. et al.). The court agreed