Insurance companies have a well-earned reputation for creativity when coming up with reasons to deny paying off policies.

But one of the rationales used by the Cincinnati Insurance Company to reject a claim by Classy Glass, a Wisconsin-based company that operated the now-shuttered Denver Glass Academy, stands out.

The firm’s refusal to pay was based in part on defining COVID-19 as a "pollutant."

"There was quite a bit of shock there," says Levi Kellogg, co-owner of Classy Glass, which has filed a lawsuit against the Cincinnati Insurance Company and two affiliates, the Cincinnati Casualty Company and the Cincinnati Indemnity Company. "It felt like what they were doing was finding any way they could to weasel out."

The complaint, filed on April 2, translates this argument into legalese.