Restaurants Entitled to COVID-19 Coverage, N.C. Judge Rules

DURHAM, N.C. — The Cincinnati Insurance Co. is obligated to cover COVID-19-related business interruption losses sustained by a group of restaurants, finding they sustained a “direct physical loss” of their insured properties, a North Carolina judge has ruled.

On Oct. 7, Judge Orlando F. Hudson Jr. of the Durham County (N.C.) Superior Court concluded that the term “direct physical loss” does not require physical alteration to trigger coverage; rather, it encompasses an “inability to utilize something in the real, material or bodily world, resulting from a given cause.”

"Therefore, 'direct physical loss' describes the scenario where businessowners and their employees, …