My Business Will Be Closed For Termite Fumigation. Am I Covered By My Insurance?

I received an interesting call this week from a client with a really unique question, definitely the first I had ever been asked this one: “My business will be closed for three days for termite fumigation, am I covered by my business insurance?”

Not a bad question actually.

This insured is a local hair salon which is located in a four-story building where the ground floor consists of retail shops and the upper floors are all residential condominiums. The building needs to undergo termite tenting and the business on the ground floor will be forced to close their doors for three days. There are three businesses total, but one of them is a restaurant and the homeowners association can only afford to pay one days worth of income for the restaurant, and the restaurant only.

What about the other two days and the other two business tenants??

This is when my client called to ask if his policy would provide such coverage.

The answer to this question is unfortunately, no. There is no business income/interruption coverage provided by a property insurance policy. The tenting of the building for termite fumigation purposes is not a covered cause of loss. Not to say that there are no carriers out there who offer some kind of special endorsement for something like this, but it’s very unlikely. I am not aware of any myself and even ran it by the carrier underwriter to be certain.

However this homeowners association decides to handle it has yet to be determined, but insurance isn’t the solution to the business closures in this scenario.

–JK