Latest COVID-19 Headlines

All the headlines from our COVID-19 Topic Page, ordered by recency.

University of Delaware Settles Class Action Over COVID Campus Shutdown

Jun 20 2023 // The University of Delaware has agreed to pay $6.3 million to settle a lawsuit over its campus shutdown in 2020 and the halting of in-person classes because of the coronavirus pandemic.According to court papers that were...

London’s Excel Centre Wins Insurance Ruling on COVID-19 Biz Interruption Losses

Jun 19 2023 // The owners of London’s ExCel conference center on Friday won a court ruling against insurers, including Royal & Sun Alliance, over pandemic-related losses, which its lawyers said could affect hundreds of...

BioNTech Faces First German Lawsuit Over Alleged COVID-19 Vaccine Side Effects

Jun 12 2023 // BioNTech will go to court on Monday to defend itself against a lawsuit from a German woman who is seeking damages for alleged side effects of its COVID-19 vaccine, the first of potentially hundreds of cases in the...

Report Looks at Long COVID Claims in California Workers’ Comp

Jun 12 2023 // Roughly 13% of COVID-19 claims with medical payments received treatments for long COVID symptoms in the workers’ compensation system, a new report shows.The Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of...

Texas Insurance Carriers Reported Nearly 100K COVID Claims: DWC Factsheet

Jun 5 2023 // Texas insurance carriers reported nearly 100,000 COVID-19 claims and 472 fatalities to the Texas Department of Insurance, Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC), according to a factsheet released this week by...

Auto Claim Severity Up 35% Over Pre-Pandemic Rates: LexisNexis Report

Jun 5 2023 // Claim severity for bodily injury and property damage increased by 35% since 2019, while collision claim severity has jumped 40%, LexisNexis Risk Solutions says in a new report.The data broker’s 2023 U.S. Auto...

Broadway Theaters, Insurer Agree to End COVID-19 Business Loss Claims

May 16 2023 // An owner of Broadway theaters and Pacific Indemnity Insurance Co. have voluntarily agreed to end their remaining litigation over COVID-19 coverage claims.Under the stipulation filed May 11, each party will bear its own...

New Hampshire High Court Rejects Cat Urine Analogy in Overturning Hotels’ COVID Insurance Win

May 15 2023 // The New Hampshire Supreme Court has overturned a trial court that had found for a group of 23 hotels claiming they were entitled to insurance payments for business interruption losses caused by contamination of their...

Illinois Governor Signs Law Giving Benefits to Chicago First Responders Disabled by COVID

May 12 2023 // Gov. J.B. Pritzker this week signed a law providing full disability benefits to Chicago police officers and firefighters struck by COVID-19 before vaccines were available, presiding over an emotional statehouse ceremony...

Auto Claim Severity Up 35% over Pre-Pandemic Rates – LexisNexis Report

May 12 2023 // Claim severity for bodily injury and property damage increased by 35% since 2019, while collision claim severity has jumped 40%, LexisNexis Risk Solutions says in a new report.The data broker’s 2023 U.S. Auto...

Court Upholds Denial of Widow’s COVID-19 Workers’ Compensation Death Claim

May 2 2023 // The widow of a man who died from COVID-19 has been denied workers’ compensation benefits because she failed to prove that the death was work-related.The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of New York on May 1...

Virginia Workers’ Compensation Review Panel Clarifies COVID-19 Presumption

May 2 2023 // Virginia’s statutory presumption that a COVID-19 disability of a first responder is work-related, which went into effect July 1, 2020, does not require that the employee be diagnosed with COVID-19 on or after that...

Court Reinstates Criminal Charges Against Veterans’ Home Officials Over COVID Policies

May 1 2023 // Massachusetts’ highest court overruled a lower court judge Thursday and reinstated criminal neglect charges against two top former officials at a veterans’ home. Nearly 80 veterans died at the Veterans’...

California Church Paying $1.2M over Broken COVID Rules

Apr 17 2023 // A California church that defied safety regulations during the COVID-19 pandemic by holding large, unmasked religious services must pay $1.2 million in fines, a judge has ruled.Calvary Chapel in San Jose was fined last week...

How Covid-19 Transformed the Insurance Industry

Apr 14 2023 // This post is part of a series sponsored by AgentSync. Across the insurance distribution channel, everyone from the largest carriers to individual insurance consumers have witnessed a “digital transformation” to...

Students Flunk Test for Class Action Over Covid Cutbacks by University

Apr 10 2023 // A federal court has rejected a proposed class action by students against Boston University over alleged damages they suffered due to cutbacks by the school during the Covid-19 pandemic.The students sought a refund of...

Ignited by Pandemic Changes, Insurers Embraced Innovation

Apr 5 2023 // The pandemic kickstarted the new wave of accepting and using innovative systems and methods in the insurance industry. It opened eyes to the ways that innovations and technology could do more than just efficiently get the...

University Faces Class-Action by Students Over COVID Campus Lockdown

Apr 5 2023 // A lawsuit against the University of Delaware over its campus shutdown and halting of in-person classes because of coronavirus can proceed as a class action on behalf of thousands of students who were enrolled and paid...

Louisiana Supreme Court Reverses, Finds No Coverage Owed for COVID Shutdown

Apr 3 2023 // The Louisiana Supreme Court has joined state high courts across the nation in rejecting a policyholder’s business-interruption claim for income lost because of government restrictions imposed to slow the spread of...

Texas Department of Insurance Updates COVID Data Call Results

Mar 31 2023 // The Texas Department of Insurance Division of Workers’ Compensation (DWC) updated COVID-19 workers’ compensation claims data, with insurance carriers reporting 98,000 COVID-19 claims and 468 fatalities through...