BANKRUPTCY IN..3..2..1: Live Nation Sues Insurance Company for Not Covering COVID-19 Claims.
Live Nation is the latest company to join a growing group who say that Rhode Island-based insurer Factory Mutual has failed to pay out claims on its Global Advantage All-Risk property insurance policy. The touring giant purchased the policy “at significant expense” on June 1, 2019, for coverage through June 1, 2020, states the filing, submitted by Live Nation’s outside counsel Marc D. Halpern. The policy “specifically designates communicable disease as a covered cause of loss.”
Live Nation claims COVID-19 outbreaks affected 35 company locations, infecting 62 of its employees during the first months of the pandemic, and cites “an unprecedented and nearly complete shut-down of the live music industry” that has cost the promoter billions of dollars in losses.
At issue is the Global Advantage policy’s property damage section, which Live Nation claims is “meant to protect the insured against all risks of loss, whether known or unknown” with enhancements added to the coverage protecting “against loss of income following a disaster, wherever you operate, or however indirect your connection to the loss.” (A copy of the policy was not included in the lawsuit.) The suit notes that while many outside All-Risk policies don’t cover “pathogens, viruses or other disease-causing agents,” the FM policy “expressly includes ‘Communicable Disease’ as a covered cause of loss.”
Other companies currently suing Factory Mutual include Ralph Lauren, Cinemark, New York University and the Atlanta Falcons — all similarly claiming the insurer failed to pay out claims for pandemic-related financial losses.
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