Coronavirus Insurance Issue #1

This Issue sadly finds our Country and the World treading new waters.

RKM wishes all of you and your families to stay safe in these very difficult and compromising times. We want to take this opportunity to assure you that we are here to serve and assist you, please do not hesitate to call us for any questions you may have.  We will get through this together, hopefully sooner than later.

RKM remains open for business as usual; claims, renewals , late pay notices , Certificates, Etc.

We are seeing more questions now regarding coverages and how they might apply to this Pandemic. Since this is new to all of us and continues to evolve, so will the information.

1-    Liability /business policy;
•    24 hour operations that are now starting to  close at night, will need to immediately install a “Central Station Alarm” in order for coverage to apply to a “Burglary” while closed.
Note a “Local alarm” is not acceptable to the Insurance Carriers , it must be a “Central Station Monitored Alarm”
•    Riots and Looting ; For those of us that were here for the Rodney King riots, you are aware that Riots and Looting are a covered loss and do not have the same requirements as a single /individual act of a “Burglary” as mentioned above.
•    Loss of Income/business interruption; this coverage only gets triggered if you have a covered cause of loss , such as fire, theft, lightning , hail, windstorm, riot, civil commotion , vandalism, or vehicle damage .  Claims for business interruption and/or civil authority denial of access must involve (as mentioned in policy language) “a direct physical loss to covered property from a covered cause of loss”. In most situations involving COVID-19, the requirement of direct physical loss is not likely to be present, therefore coverage would not exist. And, these coverages are also subject to the virus or bacteria exclusion, on the policy.
•    Most commercial property and business owner policies contain a virus or bacteria exclusion endorsement, which would directly address and preclude any claim for coverage.

2-    Worker Compensation;
•    Each Carrier will be notifying their policyholders of how each one will be handling potential claims that may develop from the virus

Next week, we will be launching our RKM website , www.rkm-ins.com
There, we will continue to update and provide you with needed information as we receive it.

At this point, nothing is set in stone of course, but a good place to start as we move forward in the hopes that all will be over soon and we can get back to our normal lives.  In the meantime, we all realize that this situation is consistently changing, however, we at RKM will continue to do all we can to keep you , our Clients, informed and updated.

Thank you for being an important part of RKM and again we wish you and your families safety at all times!