On August 16, 2021, the District Court for Clark County, Nevada, denied an insurance company’s motion to dismiss a property owner’s lawsuit seeking business interruption insurance coverage due to COVID-19.

A key defense often asserted by insurers in response to such claims is that physical loss or damage is required to trigger coverage and neither results from COVID-19.

In this lawsuit, the property owner asserted the impact of SARS-COV-2 virions and COVID-19 exposure on the building’s interior surfaces amounts to an alteration of the property’s conditions resulting in physical damage.

Without deciding the issue on its merits, the court found the complaint sufficiently alleged physical damage to trigger insurance coverage and allowed the matter to proceed.

In a different case, the Superior Court for Durham County, North Carolina, went a step further and granted summary judgment for policy holders. The plaintiffs, a group of restaurants, had purchased ‘all risk’ property insurance that provided coverage for business interruption due to direct physical loss or damage to property.