A Connecticut Superior court has ruled that the-all risk insurance policy the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation took out on its Foxwoods Casino must pay out $2 million for business losses and cleaning costs the tribe accrued during the pandemic last year.
That’s only a fraction of the $76 million the tribe paid out during the pandemic, and which the tribe had sued to try to recover.
The tribe sued in January after Factory Mutual Insurance Co. said its losses were not covered by the $1.6 billion in coverage. The policy had included an exclusion for “any cost due to contamination” which included viruses, but the tribe had purchased extra coverage for communicable disease response costs, including costs association with cleanup and for business interruptions due to communicable disease.
The judge ruled that the coverage included $1 million for communicable disease response and $1 million for interruption of business.
The judge wrote, “The Pequots try to show that costs caused by a virus are directly resulting from other physical damage not excluded,” adding, “They can’t escape the fact that their damage was directly caused by the virus, not some other covered cause.”
