Last week’s post included analysis of many courts’ interpretations of business interruption coverage and the conflict created by policy provisions requiring a suspension of hotel operations and mitigation of property loss. This week’s post provides tips to help hotel owners and risk managers avoid business interruption coverage gaps.
Hospitality Law
Hotels May Find Courts’ Interpretation of Business Interruption Coverage Inhospitable
Posted on
Posted in Commercial Insurance Claims, Insurance
In the hospitality business, property loss can be financially difficult. Property loss combined with complete or even partial shutdown of hotel operations can be devastating. For these reasons, most standard hotel property polices include business interruption coverage. Business interruption coverage is intended to provide money to sustain a business while its operations are suspended or partially suspended due to damage to the insured property by a covered cause of loss (e.g., fire, tornado, hurricane). Business interruption coverage benefits are usually estimated by calculating a business’ pre-tax net profit that would have been earned had the loss not occurred, plus the normal operating expenses and payroll that continue during the period of restoration to the damaged property.…
The Hospitality Industry Has Significant Insurance Coverage Issues: Lessons Taught at the 2010 Hospitality Law Conference
By Chip Merlin on
I represented a Houston based hotel management company last spring regarding Hurricane Ike insurance claim disputes with eleven hotels they owned or managed in Texas. Some cases simply go right, and this one settled after two months. My client’s owners went out of their way to call to my attention that managers in the hospitality and real estate management business needed to be taught about the insurance claim game. The next thing I knew, they were putting a phone to my ear and I was talking to Stephen Barth of HospitalityLawyer.com.…