Imagine that you are operating a small business in Oklahoma City; suddenly an electrical fire erupts in the backroom. After the fire is put out, and the situation is assessed, it becomes clear that the property damage will force you to temporarily shut down operations. Certainly, you will need to bring a fire damage claim to seek compensation for your property repairs. However, your losses may be far deeper than that. As you have been forced to suspend your commercial operations, your business could be losing out on a considerable amount of money every single day.
To ensure financial protection against this form of risk, many Oklahoma companies have a type of insurance coverage for ‘business interruption’. Unlike basic property insurance coverage, which provides protection against direct property damage losses, business interruption insurance grants companies with financial relief for any loss of profits that happened as a consequence of that property damage.
As important as this type of insurance coverage is for Oklahoma business owners, recovering full compensation for business interruption can be challenging. Unfortunately, the big insurance companies often undervalue these types of claims. At The Bennett Law Firm, our top-rated Oklahoma City property insurance attorneys have the skills and experience to handle your business interruption claim. If you believe that your case was wrongly denied by the insurance company, please contact our team now for your free legal consultation.
The Three Basics Kinds of Business Interruption
Direct Interruption
Direct interruption coverage is the most common and straightforward type of business interruption insurance. Essentially, this type of insurance protection covers business losses that stem directly from the property damage itself. For example, if you owned a retail store that operated in Oklahoma City, and your location had to be closed because of serious storm damage for a period of two weeks, your direct interruption insurance policy would allow you to file a claim to seek compensation for two weeks worth of lost income.
Extended Interruption
Extended interruption insurance coverage is a little bit more complex. It provides an added level of financial protection to businesses whose operations may be interrupted by property damage. The issue that extended coverage addresses is that sometimes when a business closes, it takes a considerable amount of time to get back to the same level of profits that were being accrued, before the property-damage related disruption occurred. With extended business interruption coverage, a company has protection for the losses sustained after the business operations resume, but before revenue returns to the previous level.
Contingent Interruption
Finally, Oklahoma companies can also obtain a third type of business interruption coverage known as contingent loss coverage. This type of coverage covers business losses that were caused because another party sustained damage. For instance, imagine that a major supplier of your company had to suspend operations due to a storm or any other type unforeseeable event; it is no doubt that your business could lose money as a result. With contingent interaction coverage, your company would have financial protection against this type of loss.
Disputes Over the Value of Business Interruption Losses
Business interruption claims are especially confusing and complicated because there are often major disputes over the fair value of the lost profits. Put simply, business interruption damages are far more difficult to value than are most other types of losses; there is some inherent ambiguity in these valuations. It is a sad truth, but the big insurance companies are known to try to take advantage of this ambiguity, putting unfair, low estimates on the value of lost profits.
Our firm helps policyholders fight back. If your business interruption claim was significantly undervalued, or was outright denied by the insurance company, you may have been the victim of bad faith settlement practices. Our dedicated legal team has deep experience handling cases where insurance companies act in unlawful ways. We know how to hold bad-acting insurance companies legally liable for their misconduct. You should not accept one penny less than you are owed under the terms of your insurance policy.
Contact Our Oklahoma Property Insurance Attorneys Today
At The Bennett Law Firm, our Oklahoma bad faith insurance attorneys have extensive experience handling complex business interruption claims. To request your free case evaluation, please call us today at 405-272-0303 to reach The Bennett Law Firm. Our office is located in the heart of Oklahoma City, and we proudly represent business owners throughout the region.