Business Interruption Lawyer in Beaumont Serving Clients Throughout Texas
Some insurance policies include terms or endorsements meant to protect you when your business sustains losses. When you purchase Business Interruption Coverage or Extra Expense Coverage, you expect those policies to kick in when you face unexpected monetary damages as a result of interruptions to your flow of business due to circumstances outside of your control. Unfortunately, insurance is a business that thrives on insurers refusing to provide the service they exist to deliver. Insurance providers inappropriately deny claims, delay investigations, slow the process of payments, make lowball settlement offers, and engage in any number of unscrupulous behaviors aimed at preventing business owners from securing the coverage they are owed under the policies they paid for. The less insurers pay policyholders for valid claims, the higher their profits.
The Beaumont business damage interruption attorneys at Gilbert Adams Law Offices understands how insurance companies work and the tactics they use to reduce or deny legitimate claims. We will not allow your insurance provider to engage in bad faith maneuvers to deny you coverage or bully you into accepting less than your claim is worth. If your business is suffering and your insurance provider refuses to pay what they owe, Gilbert Adams Law Offices is here to help.
What is Business Interruption Coverage?
Business interruption policies exist to compensate its insured when the operation of the business is interrupted due to circumstances beyond the control, although the specific terms of coverage can vary from policy to policy. Restaurants, retailers, apartment buildings, auto repair shops, and any other business that is dependent on keeping a physical property open purchases business interruption coverage to cover some losses when an unexpected, physically damaging event prevents a company from operating as it normally and usually does. Business interruption insurance is typically an addition to property insurance, rather than a separate or stand-alone policy. The terms of the coverage can vary, but generally, business interruption insurance might be triggered after a fire, an earthquake, a building collapse, a flood, or some other event that causes physical damage to a property impeding the normal operation of the business.
Business interruption coverage is meant to provide business income, meaning that the insurance provider should pay the business owner the income they would have received had the business remained open during the affected period. The period typically begins when the damage occurs to the building and ends whenever the repairs are completed or the business is able to reopen, depending on the terms of the policy. Policyholders can also obtain extended business interruption coverage to pay for income lost after the property is repaired but while the income level remains lower than the historical income over a recent period.
Don’t Let Insurance Providers Avoid Paying You What They Owe
Insurance providers might engage in a number of tactics to reduce or reject a business interruption claim. For instance, unscrupulous insurers may,
- dispute your calculation of the income lost,
- try to find a loophole in the policy to exclude the specific event or loss itself,
- needlessly prolong an investigation or claim payouts in the hopes that a policyholder will accept less or drop the claim, or
- reject coverage without providing a proper explanation.
A dedicated Texas business interruption attorney can help you fight back against these unfair and illegal tactics and ensure that you get the coverage you are owed under the policy you purchased.
Business Interruption During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Many companies are facing severe hardship as a result of the COVID-19 coronavirus. Local, state, and federal orders have forced most restaurants, retailers, and other consumer-oriented businesses to close for the time being, hampering or outright preventing any sales from taking place. Businesses around the country have been suffering devastating losses as a result. Understanding that they purchased insurance for just such an occasion, companies are turning to their business interruption insurance policies for aid. Insurance providers, however, have been dragging their feet in providing coverage for losses sustained as a result of the pandemic.
Insurers have taken the position that a virus does not constitute a physical, dangerous “condition” sufficient to trigger these business interruption policies. Most businesses, moreover, are closed not because of the actual presence of the virus at the business location, but to prevent the potential spread of the virus to others. Additionally, many insurance providers modified their professional insurance policies to specifically exclude viruses from coverage after the SARS virus epidemic in 2003.
Some lawmakers are looking into workarounds to find a way through these exclusions for business owners harmed during the pandemic. In the meantime, lawsuits over coronavirus business interruption claims are increasing. A virus is absolutely a “dangerous condition,” and it carries a physical presence. Moreover, businesses are being interrupted specifically by local and state authorities ordering them to close as a result of this dangerous condition–civil order closure is a common provision in these policies. If your business is facing hardship as a result of coronavirus closure and your insurance company refuses to pay out, the experienced and effective business interruption insurance lawyers at Gilbert Adams Law Offices are ready to take your case and fight for the coverage you deserve.
Get Help from a Texas Wrongful Insurance Claim Denial Lawyer
Texas law provides for your rights when dealing with unfair insurance practices, including wrongful delay or denial of a claim and insurance fraud. Gilbert Adams Law Offices knows the tricks used by insurance companies to stall or dismiss your claim and how to put insurance companies on their heels. For dedicated, competent, and trial-ready legal help after an insurance company wrongfully denies your business interruption claim, contact the Beaumont offices of the Gilbert Adams Law Offices for a free consultation at 409-835-3000.