Insurance is something else
Emailed on June 26th 2020 in The Friday Forward
Turns out, canceling your flight because of a global pandemic is not covered in the policies of the two major flight insurers, Allianz and Travel Guard.
Even if you had COVID-19, you only got a payout under certain conditions. In flight insurance lingo, you can’t be covered if there is a “foreseen” disaster.
But insurers set their own rules about when the risk of catching COVID-19 was “foreseen.” For Allianz, you had to book before January 22. For Travel Guard, you had until March 11. COVID-19 patients who bought insurance after those dates were out of luck.
Small businesses don't seem to be fairing any better. Back in 2006, small business insurers agreed that they wouldn’t cover any pandemic-related loss of business. Which means: Businesses facing a historic drop in customers are going to have a tough time getting insurance help.
Possible workaround: One lawyer told Marker there might be a workaround -- blaming a loss of income on the lockdown, not the virus specifically -- but it won’t be easy.
Meanwhile, businesses facing looting damage have also struggled to get their money.