Third Straight Appellate Court Rules No Covid Business Interruption Coverage

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a district court ruling that an Ohio restaurant that had lost business as a result of Covid was not entitled to coverage on a business interruption claim. The court cited two other recent appellate court decisions, in the 8th and 11th circuits, in concluding that commercial property insurance doesn’t cover losses indirectly caused by a virus that injures people and not property, and that loss of use “simply is not the same as physical loss.” The court in this case ventured into a more generalized reflection on the business of insurance business, opining that a policy cannot be “a general safety net for all dangers,” and that when policy holders push coverage beyond a policy’s terms it creates “a mismatch, an insurance product that covers something no one paid for and, worse, runs the risk of leaving insufficient funds to pay for perils that insureds did pay for.”