“You pay insurance for decades for precisely
the unthinkable, and when it happens these
insurance companies do the unconscionable”
by rejecting claims, Geragos told The
Hollywood Reporter.
Forcing insurers to pay hundreds of billions
of dollars a month could quickly deplete the
$800 billion set aside to cover future home,
auto and other losses, according to the
insurance association.
The attorney for the Billy Goat, which expanded
from its flagship site to include establishments
around Chicago, says he has little sympathy
for insurers.
“They are in the business of selling people
insurance for exactly this kind of situation,”
Esbrook said. “They can’t now cry they’re poor
when the very situation they are insuring arises.”
President Donald Trump recently expressed
sympathy for businesses asking insurers to pay
up for business interruption coverage.
“When they finally need it, the insurance
company says, ‘We’re not going to give it,’” he
said at a coronavirus task force news conference.
“We can’t let that happen.”
Similar conflicts are playing out in Europe
and Asia, though they aren’t likely to see the
torrent of lawsuits sure to come in the litigious
United States.
The question on which many cases will hinge is
whether the presence of the virus in or near a
business can be categorized as direct physical
damage, something that would otherwise be
clearly covered. It’s a question courts haven’t
definitively answered.