California Business Owners: Was Your COVID-19 Business Interruption Claim Denied?

Business interruption insurance (or “Loss of Business Income Insurance”) provides financial protection to businesses in the event that there is an unforeseen interruption to their usual income, such as theft, fire, or natural disaster. It is intended to return the amount of profit to the owner’s business that would have been earned had there been no interruption.

The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting shelter-in-place orders have created a jarring interruption in profits for non-essential businesses nation-wide, and California businesses are among the hardest hit. In fact, Governor Newsom ordered that non-essential businesses close their doors indefinitely.

While it is a stressful time for many businesses, it is also exactly the kind of time business interruption insurance was designed to provide financial protection for. This has prompted many business owners with such policies to file claims, only to find that many of their insurance companies are unilaterally denying all COVID-19 business interruption claims. This leaves business owners without the protection they have been paying for every month (sometimes for years), and without the resources they need to continue operating.

There has been a great deal of public outcry over insurance companies shirking their responsibility to cover COVID-19 insurance interruption claims. As a consequence, the California Department of Insurance recently issued a notice requiring insurance companies and other businesses licensed by the Department to comply with their contractual, statutory, regulatory, and other legal obligations by fairly investigating all business interruption claims caused by COVID-19 within 40 days.

At Boertje & Associates, we are ready to fight for the insurance money and protection you are entitled to so you can keep your business going. California business owners are encouraged to immediately acknowledge any loss of claim and must do so within 15 days, so schedule your free consultation as soon as possible.

If you have a valid business insurance policy, you may be entitled to coverage for damages resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, including coverage for loan payments, profits, employee wages, rent, and other costs associated with the interruption, for up to 12 months, depending on your policy.

Specifically, you may be eligible for coverage if:

• Your valid business insurance policy includes coverage for business interruption or loss of income.
• You are a California business owner.
• You can demonstrate significant financial losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic or the government-mandated shut-down.

Whether you are entitled to coverage, and how much you are entitled to, will come down to the exact terms of your particular insurance policy. For instance, some business interruption insurance policies exclude losses from viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms, but many do not. It is also important to note that even if your policy does exclude losses from viruses, there are still many ways that coverage may still be available to you. For instance, your policy may exclude viruses but not government-mandated shutdowns.

The only person who can really tell you with certainty whether you are entitled to coverage is an experienced California Insurance Attorney. If you believe you may be entitled to coverage that could help save your business or recoup your losses, schedule a FREE consultation with Boertje & Associates—time restrictions apply for filing and appealing insurance claims, so call 888-476-0901 today.

Additionally, through a strategic partnership Boertje & Associates is working alongside one of the most well known and well respected insurance coverage lawyers in California who has over 30 years of experience specifically handling insurance coverage issues and insurance bad faith litigation and claims.

Please contact our office if you would like us to review your business insurance policies. We will gladly review and evaluate all of your policies for FREE regardless of whether you decide to ultimately have our office pursue an insurance claim on your business’s behalf, so that at least you may know all the potential options available to your business. Should you decide to have us pursue your business insurance claim, our office will handle your case on a pure contingency basis, which means there will be no fees unless we are successful. Our fees would be taken out of any settlement of judgment on an agreed upon contingency fee basis. Time restrictions are applicable to file your business interruption insurance claim pursuant to California law and also pursuant to time limitations which are likely contained within your policy, so contact our office as soon as possible to schedule a free consultation.