Business interruption insurance
Coverwatch places business interruption for businesses that would lose real income if a covered loss closed their doors. We size the limit and the restoration period to how long you would actually be down, then structure it to pay the income you lose across the full closure.
Why Coverwatch
- Markets
- Shopped with the carriers writing your building, where it usually gets overlooked.
- Competition
- 60+ markets head to head on how long it pays while you're closed, not just price.
- Endorsements
- Whether a supplier or power outage that shuts you down is covered.
At a glance
- What it covers
- The income you would have earned, and the bills that keep coming, during a shutdown caused by covered physical damage.
- What it doesn't
- The repair of the building or equipment itself, and any shutdown with no direct physical loss behind it.
Trusted by 60+ carrier partners
What does business interruption insurance cover?
Business interruption insurance covers the net income your business would have earned, plus continuing expenses like payroll and rent, while a covered direct physical loss forces you to close. It runs through the period of restoration, the time needed to repair and reopen. It does not cover the repair itself or a shutdown with no physical damage.
How we get you covered
We take business interruption insurance to 60+ markets, build it to fit your business, and keep it compliant.
Read your risk
We map what could actually go wrong in your operation, where a claim would come from, and who would bring it.
Shop 60+ markets
We take your risk to the carriers that know your class and make them compete on price and terms.
Build the endorsements
We add the endorsement wording that decides whether the policy responds to a claim, beyond the base form.
Keep you compliant
We handle the COIs, additional-insured certs, and renewals, so you are never the one chasing paperwork.
Who needs business interruption
Any business that would lose real income if a covered loss forced it to close, especially one with thin margins, perishable stock, or a lease whose rent keeps running through the shutdown.
Industry
Restaurants
A kitchen fire or equipment loss can dark a restaurant for months while rent and key staff costs keep running.
Fast food
High-volume sites with thin per-unit margins lose income fast when a single location closes.
Fine dining
High fixed costs and a long rebuild make the restoration period the figure to size carefully.
Restaurant groups
Multi-unit operators need per-location income limits so one closure does not strand the others.
Industry
Grocery stores
Refrigeration and power failures spoil stock and halt sales, a textbook business interruption trigger for grocers.
Small grocery
A single equipment loss can close the only location, so income coverage is existential.
Supermarket
Large perishable inventory and high daily revenue raise both the spoilage and the lost-income exposure.
Supercenter
High volume and mixed departments mean a partial closure still strips meaningful daily income.
Industry
Retail
A storm or fire that closes the sales floor through peak weeks costs a retailer all the income those weeks would have produced.
Industry
Ecommerce
Brands that hold and ship physical stock lose income when a warehouse or production site is shut by a covered loss.
What's covered, and what isn't
In the policy
Lost net business income
The policy pays the net income your business would have earned had the loss never happened, measured against your actual financial history.
Continuing operating expenses
Payroll, rent, loan payments, and other normal costs keep coming even while the doors are closed.
Extra expense
The added costs you spend to keep operating or to reopen faster: a temporary location, rented equipment, expedited shipping, or overtime.
Extended business income
Revenue rarely snaps back the day you reopen.
Contingent business interruption
When a key supplier or a major customer suffers a covered physical loss and that shuts you down, dependent-property coverage responds.
Not in the policy
The physical repair itself
Rebuilding the burned building and replacing the ruined equipment is property damage, not lost income.
Covered by Commercial Property
Income loss with no physical trigger
A downturn, a lost contract, or a voluntary closure with no direct physical damage to property does not trigger the policy.
Covered by no standard policy; this is uninsured business risk
Most pandemic and civil-authority closures
A shutdown ordered for a virus or public-health reason usually fails the direct-physical-loss trigger.
Covered by a specialty parametric or event-cancellation policy
Off-premises utility outages
When power, water, or communications fail at the utility's own equipment off your property, the base form does not respond.
Covered by a utility-services time-element endorsement
Loss beyond the period of restoration
Coverage ends when the property is repaired or could reasonably have been repaired, plus the extended income window.
Covered by the Extended Period of Indemnity option
Claims business interruption pays
Kitchen fire closes a restaurant
A grease fire damages the line and the dining room, and the restaurant is dark for four months of rebuild.
$75K–$500K+
Refrigeration failure spoils a grocer's stock
A covered equipment loss knocks out the refrigeration, perishable inventory is destroyed, and the store closes for cleanup and restocking.
$50K–$400K
Storm damages a retail store
A windstorm strips the roof and rain ruins the sales floor, forcing the store to close through the rebuild and the peak shopping weeks inside it.
$40K–$600K
Supplier's plant burns and halts your line
A sole-source supplier's factory suffers a covered fire and your production stops for lack of parts.
$100K–$1M+
Ranges are typical lost-income and extra-expense bands for these claim types, not a quote. Actual exposure depends on your margins, how long you are down, and the limit and restoration period you carry.
How much coverage you need
There is no standard limit. Two things decide what you actually need, and you carry whichever is higher.
- How long a real rebuild would take
- Size the restoration period to a worst-case rebuild, not an average one. A total fire or a permit-heavy rebuild can take a year or more, and a limit set to a three-month closure runs out while you are still dark. The clock, not the dollar figure alone, is what fails most claims.
- Your net income plus continuing expenses
- Add the net profit the closure erases to the payroll, rent, and loan payments that keep running, then project both forward across the full restoration period. The business income worksheet does this math, and an honest worksheet is what keeps the coinsurance clause from cutting your payout.
- SBA disaster loans
- Working-capital EIDL
- Commercial leases
- Rents stay due
- Franchisors
- 12 months income
The SBA's Economic Injury Disaster Loan exists because so many businesses lack interruption coverage; lenders increasingly expect business income coverage on the property policy securing a commercial mortgage.
Most commercial leases keep base rent owed even when the premises are unusable after a casualty, which is the continuing expense business income is built to fund through the closure.
Many franchise agreements require franchisees to carry business income coverage, commonly for a 12-month restoration period, to protect the brand's revenue and the royalty stream during a rebuild.
- Business income limit
- Actual loss sustained
- Period of restoration
- Repair time + waiting period
- Waiting period (time deductible)
- 72 hours
- Extended business income
- 30 to 90+ days
- Coinsurance
- 50% to 125%
Most forms pay the actual loss sustained, meaning the real income and expenses you lose during the closure rather than a flat dollar cap chosen in advance. The limit you buy still sets the ceiling, but the payout is measured against your true financials, not estimated up front.
The window the policy pays for. It begins after a short waiting period and runs until the property is repaired or could reasonably have been repaired. Because the window is measured in time, a rebuild that drags on can outlast a limit sized to an optimistic timeline.
The deductible on business interruption is measured in time rather than dollars. The ISO form sets a default 72-hour waiting period, which an endorsement can shorten to 24 hours or remove. Short outages fall below the clock, so only a multi-day shutdown reaches the coverage.
The number of days the policy keeps paying after repairs are done, while revenue climbs back to pre-loss levels. The base form includes a set window, often 30 to 60 days, which an endorsement can extend when your recovery curve is slow.
A clause requiring you to insure income to a set percentage of your projected annual figure. Insure below it and the insurer pays only the ratio you carried, so an underbuilt income worksheet quietly cuts the check after a loss.
Endorsements that close the gaps
The base form is the start. These add-ons are where the policy gets built to fit your business.
Business income from dependent properties
CP 15 08Extends coverage to a physical loss at a key supplier or major customer that shuts you down, the contingent business interruption grant beyond your own walls.
Extended period of indemnity (CP 00 30 option)
An Optional Coverage built into the CP 00 30 form and set in the Declarations.
Utility services, time element
Buys back income lost from an off-premises power, water, or communications outage, which the base form excludes.
Civil authority extension
Pays lost income when a government order bars access to your premises because of nearby covered physical damage.
Questions buyers actually ask
For most businesses, no. Business interruption is a time-element coverage added to a commercial property policy or a business owners (BOP) policy, usually on the ISO CP 00 30 form, rather than a standalone purchase. The property side pays to repair the building and replace the contents; the business interruption side replaces the income lost while you are closed. Because it rides on the property policy, it shares that policy's covered perils, so the same fire or storm that triggers the property claim is what triggers the income claim. A standalone time-element policy exists for larger or specialized risks, but the packaged version covers most small and midsize businesses.
The period of restoration is the window business interruption insurance pays for. It begins a set number of hours after the physical loss, the waiting period. It then runs until the damaged property is repaired, rebuilt, or replaced with reasonable speed, or could have been. It is a time measure, not a dollar cap, which is why sizing it matters more than the headline limit. A total loss with permitting and supply delays can take a year or more to rebuild, and a restoration period set to an optimistic three or four months leaves the business uncovered for the back half of the closure. Extended business income then continues coverage for a set number of days after reopening.
Almost never under a standard policy. Business interruption requires direct physical loss of or damage to property as the trigger, and a virus or a government closure order does not meet that test on its own. This is why the vast majority of COVID-19 business interruption claims were denied and upheld by courts. Many forms also added explicit virus and bacteria exclusions after earlier outbreaks. A narrow civil-authority extension can pay when an order bars access to your premises because of nearby covered physical damage, like a fire next door, but not because of a health emergency. Coverage for a pure pandemic shutdown generally requires a specialty parametric or event-cancellation product, not the property policy.
Most policies pay the actual loss sustained, so the payout is built from your real financial records rather than a number picked in advance. To set the net income you would have earned during the closure, the adjuster looks at prior years, the trend before the loss, and what comparable months would have produced. To that they add the continuing operating expenses you cannot avoid, like payroll, rent, and loan payments, and any extra expense you spent to reduce the loss or reopen faster. The waiting period is subtracted as a time deductible. Strong, current bookkeeping is the single biggest factor in how fully a business interruption claim pays.
Contingent business interruption, written on the ISO CP 15 08 dependent-properties endorsement, extends coverage past your own premises. It responds when a key supplier, a major customer, or another property you depend on suffers a covered physical loss that in turn shuts you down. A sole-source supplier whose plant burns can halt your production line even though nothing happened at your location, and the base form would not respond to that. Manufacturers, retailers with concentrated suppliers, and any business whose revenue hinges on one upstream or downstream partner should add it. The endorsement still requires the dependent property's loss to be a covered physical peril, the same trigger as the rest of the policy.
Two inputs set the number, and you carry the larger. The first is how long a worst-case rebuild would actually take, since the restoration period is what runs out mid-claim, not the dollar limit alone. A major fire or a permit-heavy rebuild can take a year or more. The second is your net income plus the operating expenses that keep running, projected across that full period. A business income worksheet does this math, and an honest one also keeps the coinsurance clause from cutting your payout, because insuring income below the required percentage means the insurer pays only the ratio you carried. Franchisors and lenders often set a floor of 12 months; size to your real recovery curve above that.
Focus on the work.
We'll be your risk team.
Send us your policy and a licensed advisor checks your business interruption against 60+ carriers, flagging gaps and overpricing. If your limits already hold up, we'll tell you.
Your quote
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