Huge financial losses are among the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Colorado businesses and public institutions are among those suing their insurance companies to get some relief. However, experts say the courts might not be a cure.in Centennial, which provides analytics and information to governments and financial markets, is suing the global insurance company Chubb, or the Great Northern Insurance Co., for more than $100 million in losses because of the pandemic.
IHS Markit, whose brands include CARFAX, declined to comment on the lawsuit. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of S&P Global Inc.A lawsuit by the University of Colorado Board of Regents accuses Factory Mutual Insurance Co. of breach of contract for failing to honor its obligation to cover the tens of millions of dollars in losses across all its campuses because of the pandemic.
IHS Markit, the CU regents and others suing insurance companies to recoup pandemic-related business losses are trying to buck a trend that favors the insurers, said Tom Baker, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School. Baker created“Other than one trial in Texas, there’s been no case where there’s been a final result in favor of a policy holder and that case is on appeal,” Baker said.
But decisions in hundreds of lawsuits across the country have overwhelmingly gone to the insurance companies. Baker said federal courts have “almost uniformly found in favor of the insurance companies in the very preliminary stage in the litigation.”