Did Your California Carrier Underpay Your Business Interruption Claim After a Wildfire?
KBK Lawyers represents California business owners — restaurants, retailers, hotels, offices, manufacturers, professional firms — whose business interruption insurance carrier denied or underpaid the lost-income claim after a wildfire shut them down. Free, confidential case review. No fee unless we recover money for you.
Holding Insurance Companies Accountable
$5.2 million bad-faith settlement against an insurance carrier that failed to pay the amounts owed for damage to a beachfront property after Hurricane Florence. $250+ million portfolio in Northridge earthquake bad-faith claims. We have brought commercial bad-faith cases against major carriers and won. (Attorney Advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.)
Why Carriers Underpay Business Interruption Claims
Business interruption is one of the most heavily disputed areas of any commercial property insurance policy because carriers have multiple ways to reduce the value of a lost-income claim, including:
- Defining the period of restoration narrowly to exclude the actual time required to reopen the business
- Calculating lost income using weaker historical periods instead of realistic business projections
- Challenging or denying continuing operating expenses such as rent, utilities, payroll, and debt service
- Minimizing extra expense coverage
- Restricting civil authority coverage to limited direct-damage triggers
- Capping off-premises business income coverage through policy sublimits
- Applying coinsurance penalties to reduce claim payments
A California business interruption insurance lawyer who has handled these disputes can work with forensic accountants, industry-specific experts, and the policy language itself to build the claim the insurance carrier should have evaluated correctly from the outset.
We Pursue Substantial Commercial Recoveries
KBK Lawyers focuses on California commercial insurance disputes involving substantial unpaid policy benefits. Our 20% contingency fee is among the lowest in the California plaintiffs’ bar for this kind of work. No fee unless we recover money for you.
What KBK Lawyers Has Recovered
$5.7M
bad-faith settlement for a condominium complex against the carrier on a hurricane damage matter
$5.2M
bad-faith settlement on a Hurricane Florence beachfront commercial property
$2.68M
bad-faith settlement on a Nevada windstorm commercial property
$250M+
Northridge earthquake bad-faith matters, including commercial
property losses
Our founding partner, Brian Kabateck, is a past President of Consumer Attorneys of California and a past President of the Consumer Attorneys Association of Los Angeles, and he has been quoted in the Los Angeles Times and on national news on California insurance and consumer cases.
What a Business Interruption Case Should Recover
Depending on the facts of your case and the terms of your policy, you may be entitled to recover:
- Full business income lost during the applicable period of restoration
- Continuing operating expenses, including rent, utilities, payroll, and debt service
- Extra expense coverage for temporary operations and business continuity efforts
- Civil authority coverage when triggered by government orders or restrictions
- Contingent business interruption coverage for losses resulting from damage to a supplier, customer, or other dependent property
- Service interruption coverage for qualifying utility outages
- Bad-faith damages where the insurance carrier’s conduct violated its obligations
- Statutory penalties available under the California Insurance Code
- Punitive damages in cases involving particularly egregious carrier misconduct
Speak With Our Experienced Team
Deadlines
Commercial property policies impose contractual suit limitations of varying lengths — review your policy. Bad-faith tort claims usually run on the two-year personal injury limit. A California business interruption insurance lawyer at our firm maps every deadline at the first call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I claim business interruption even if I am still partially operating?
Yes. Partial business interruption — where the business is operating at reduced capacity — is covered under standard policies. The carrier sometimes minimizes these claims, but the coverage is real.
What is the "period of restoration" and why does it matter?
The window covered by business interruption coverage, generally from the date of loss to the date the business could reasonably be expected to reopen. The carrier wants the window short; the actual rebuild often takes much longer. A documented record of repairs, permits, and reopening steps drives the dispute.
Do you handle small-business cases?
Yes. Business interruption coverage exists in policies for businesses of every size. The recovery scales with the lost income, not the size of the company. Our case-selection criteria focus on substantial unpaid policy benefits — typically cases with at least $200,000 in coverage in dispute.
Attorney Advertising. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.