New York’s Times Square is famed for its bright lights created by streets full of billboards, but the lights went out for one minute at 9pm last night (27 May) in support of businesses fighting to claim insurance money. The action was organised by the Business Interruption Group (BIG) – a collection of restauranteurs that banded together with lawyer John Houghtaling of legal firm Gauthier Murphy & Houghtaling. It was supported by Times Square Alliance and the NYC Hospitality Alliance to raise awareness about denied business interruption claims. “This is to symbolically show that the insurers are turning the lights out on businesses,” said Houghtaling.

New Zealand firm Tower Insurance is making 108 of its staff redundant, a move it says was made to capitalise on the trend of customers buying digitally rather than through an agent. “People want to do more digitally and are choosing to become Tower customers because of this,” CEO Richard Harding said in a statement to 1 News. He continued: “In March almost 60% of our new business came in through our digital channels and with our new self-service portal, have had over 40% of claims lodged online in March. The growth we are achieving through digital channels and the number of customers now choosing to interact with us online shows that digital is the way of the future. Our strategy has always been to grow our business from our existing cost base, however, the current recessionary environment means that future growth will now be lower than we had planned for, and to offset that, we need to reduce our costs.”

The US Travel Association has lent its support to a new bill introduced by congresswoman Carolyn B Maloney on Tuesday (26 May) that seeks to establish a Pandemic Risk Insurance Act akin to the government-backstopped insurance programme the country has to respond to terrorist attacks. The association’s vice president for public affairs and policy Tori Emerson Barnes said: “9/11 exposed the need for terrorism risk insurance, and since the impact of coronavirus on the travel industry has been nine times that of 9/11, it is very sensible to offer a similar backstop for pandemics. This measure will go a long way in giving businesses the confidence they need to reopen, which will be vital to a rapid, robust and sustained economic recovery.” The US Travel Association joins the National Retail Federation, American Society of Association Executives and Nonprofit New York, among others, in support of the bill.