"I would like to see the insurance companies pay if they need to pay — if it is fair," said Trump during a coronavirus briefing at the White House on Friday. "They know what is fair. I know what is fair. I can tell you very quickly."
Many businesses have been "paying a lot of money for a lot of years for the privilege of having" business interruption insurance, but "when they finally need, the insurance company says we are not going to give it," Trump said. "We can't let that happen."
The insurance industry has resisted pressure from government officials and businesses to pay out business interruption claims spurred by the pandemic, saying that the pandemic is not an event covered under existing policies and that coronavirus-related claims would bankrupt the insurance industry if paid out.
The industry has pushed back against the notion that it’s shirking its responsibility. It claims that it never took on the risk for the pandemic and that if insurance companies were forced to pay for uncovered coronavirus-related business losses, they would be unable to pay for losses from disasters, such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires that are covered.
Only approximately 35% of all businesses have business interruption coverage, which insures them for a number of circumstances that could cause their businesses to come to a stop, but pandemics aren’t typically included in those circumstances. Multiple insurance associations said that very few businesses, if any, are covered for a pandemic itself.
“The public impression that insurance companies have a pot of money that we should be handing out is simply money that we don’t have,” said an insurance industry executive. "There’s a lot of industry concern and activity related to this misconception."
The industry seems confident that the law is on their side, though, and that it would be illegal and unconstitutional for the government to change insurance contracts to force payouts retroactively.