Business Interrupted: Hurricane-Damaged Firms Dig In For Insurance Fight

Business owners who are trying to get back on track after hurricanes Harvey and Irma now face a different sort of challenge: trying to recoup lost income from their insurers. Exclusions in the fine print of policies, along with waiting periods and disagreements over how to measure a company’s lost income, make business interruption claims among the trickiest in an industry renowned for complexity. “I think the whole thing is a rip-off,” said Thomas Arnold, an optometrist in Sugar Land, Texas. He said his business, Today’s Vision, was shuttered for almost five days after Hurricane Harvey struck because nearby flooding kept employees and patients from getting there.