Day: April 3, 2020

Are Your COVID-19 Business Losses Covered by Insurance?

wayne April 3, 2020

Follow these steps to find out what your insurance will and won’t cover during this crisis.


3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.


For weeks now, we’ve all watched the COVID-19 virus spread across the United States and throughout the world. The impact it’s had on the economy has been devastating — and we haven’t seen the worst of it yet. Many industries, like retail, manufacturing, entertainment, hospitality and technology, will face an uphill battle for months, if not years. It is unlikely that any of us — big and small businesses alike — will come out of this thing unscathed, which is why many of us will be turning our property and business interruption insurers for help. 

Talk to your insurer 

Many insurance policies and endorsements cover losses due to business interruption. Sure, we can all agree that COVID-19 has seriously interrupted business in America. That’s the easy part. But the real question is whether or not insurers consider the virus to be “physical damage.” In essence, it’s that delineation that triggers the business interruption clause in an insurance policy, which explains why this is such a hot topic right now in 

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Big pharma’s big chance

wayne April 3, 2020

Good morning.

Last year, when Gallup pollsters asked Americans what industry they liked least, the pharmaceutical industry took top prize. The reason wasn’t hard to fathom. Persistent publicity over pricing scandals— Martin Shkreli and Valeant took top honors there—as well as the pill-pushing behind the opioid scandal, had poisoned the industry in the public mind.

The coronavirus pandemic now gives that industry a chance to redeem itself. There are fervent efforts underway at virtually every pharma company to address two key issues that will determine the course of the disease. The first is the need for drugs or therapies to help those being killed at an alarming rate. For all the focus on ventilators, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo revealed this week that they only prevent death for 20% of the people using them. We need better treatments in the field soon. The second is the race to develop a vaccine, which ultimately will be necessary to allow society to return to some sense of normalcy.

I’ve written in this space about the impressive work going on at Johnson & Johnson and Regeneron. (You can find podcast interviews with leaders of both, here.) My colleague Susie Gharib also recently …

OPEC+ set for meeting after Trump intervention

wayne April 3, 2020

Oil producer group OPEC and its partners will reportedly hold an emergency virtual meeting on Monday, with all members of the energy alliance expected to take part in an effort to stabilize markets.

It comes less than 24 hours after President Donald Trump told CNBC that he expected OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia and non-OPEC leader Russia to take up to 15 million barrels of crude off the market.

International benchmark Brent crude traded at $32.78 a barrel Friday morning, up over 9%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) stood at $26.59, more than 5% higher.

Brent settled up more than 21% on Thursday, registering its best day since contract inception in 1989, while WTI closed up over 24%, also marking its best-ever daily rally. It leaves both benchmarks on pace for their best week since January 2009, although, year-to-date, Brent and WTI are still down more than 54%.

On Friday, Azerbaijan’s energy ministry said a virtual meeting between OPEC producers and non-OPEC partners, an alliance sometimes referred to as OPEC+, had been scheduled for April 6, according to the RIA news agency.

OPEC was not immediately available to comment when contacted by CNBC Friday morning.

‘Nonsense’

Trump said via Twitter

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Senator sold online travel company stock in day before Trump Europe travel ban

wayne April 3, 2020

Senator Kelly Loeffler sold a total of $46,027 worth of stock in an online travel company in the day leading up to President Donald Trump’s announcement of a ban on most European travel to the U.S.

Though the transactions were relatively small for Loeffler and her husband — whose net worth is estimated at more than $500 million — the sales represented an about-face.

Loeffler, a Georgia Republican, had just days earlier purchased the shares, in Booking Holdings, jointly with her husband, Jeffrey Sprecher, the chief executive officer of Intercontinental Exchange, parent firm of the New York Stock Exchange

Booking Holdings provides online bookings for flights, hotels and other travel-related services, all of which have collapsed because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The stock was purchased on March 6, the day that Loeffler traveled with Trump, visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta for an update on the coronavirus response, and continuing on a later flight to Florida.

It was sold on March 10 and 11. After the markets closed on March 11, the president announced his European travel restrictions.

The details, provided by the senator’s office, go beyond the financial transaction reports she recently filed that merely require …