Associated Press News 7/28/2020- Struggling merchants, insurers battle over pandemic coverage

Robert P. Hartwig, PhD, CPCU · July 28, 2020 ·

The recent increase in business interruption claims due to the pandemic have been almost universally rejected. This is for a variety of reasons, one of them being a pandemic or virus exclusion that was added to insurance policies following the SARS outbreak in 2003. This exclusion was added because the widespread losses caused by pandemics are too staggering to cover. According to industry estimates, monthly losses of $231 billion to $431 billion are piling up at U.S. businesses with fewer than 100 employees. AP News reached out to Dr. Robert Hartwig who says, “At that rate, insurers would have no money left to cover non-pandemic claims for auto accidents, home fires and even damages to businesses during the protests across the country since George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police in May.” Read the entire article here.

About Robert P. Hartwig, PhD, CPCU

Director, Risk and Uncertainty Management Center
Clinical Associate Professor
Robert Hartwig (Ph.D., University of Illinois, 1993) is clinical associate professor of finance and director of the Risk and Uncertainty Management Center. His research focuses on insurance markets and structures, risk management, pandemic risk, risk-bearing capital market instruments, the financing of technology risks and venture capital in insurance markets. He makes frequent presentations to insurance industry management, boards of directors, regulators and legislators. Prior to joining the Darla Moore School of Business, he was president and economist for the Insurance Information Institute in New York and in prior positions worked for Swiss Re, the National Council on Compensation Insurance and the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. He has also served as an adjunct professor at Florida Atlantic University. His professional experience includes expert witness testimony and testimony before numerous congressional and state legislative committees. He holds the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) credential and speaks frequently in the media on all issues related to insurance markets.