March 26, 2020 by Greg Meckbach
Are Canadian dentists covered for business interruption or commercial liability arising from the COVID-19 pandemic?
That is open to question right now for some existing policies. What seems clear is that if a dentist wants to buy a new policy through CDSPI, it will exclude pandemic.
Toronto-based CDSPI, originally known as Canadian Dental Service Plans Inc., provides a variety of P&C, health insurance, and investment products to dentists.
CDSPI’s property and casualty products include TripleGuard, which is written by Aviva. With TripleGuard, property coverages include equipment, contents and leasehold improvements, as well as replacement of lost income from interruption due to practice damage. TripleGuard also includes commercial liability.
“At this time, we are actively working on behalf of dentists with the insurer, Aviva Insurance Company of Canada, to obtain clarity on the conditions of TripleGuard coverage in a pandemic situation,” a CDSPI spokesperson told Canadian Underwriter Monday. “The circumstances in each province are unique. Individual announcements by your provincial regulatory bodies are unprecedented, increasing the complexity in finding a uniform solution. We will share information with policyholders as soon as it becomes available.”
Canadian Underwriter contacted Aviva for this story, but did not get a response before press time.
TripleGuard has a variety of coverages, as explained in the brochure on the CDSPI website. For example, the office contents coverage is for items that are stolen or damaged by fire or vandalism (among other causes of damage). The property covered would include dental equipment, leasehold improvements, drugs, supplies, furniture, fixtures, signage and office equipment, among others.
The practice interruption coverage has a 300-word description in the CDSPI brochure, which is silent on pandemic and disease. Coverage is triggered by an insured peril such as fire, theft or vandalism.
It could also be triggered by lack of access – if, for example, the client is prohibited for up to four weeks from entering the premises by police, fire department, or other government authority. The prohibition would have to be based on a direct result of damage to neighbouring premises caused by an insured peril.
Two other types of incidents would trigger coverage under TripleGuard:
I’m curious about the extended medical/dental insurance plans and how individuals are unable to access any non emergency treatment but have still had to pay full policy fees even though there will be no way to utilize the majority of health and dental services. It doesn’t sound right that insurance companies should benefit financially from the Pandemic.
Aviva Canada has refused to pay BC dentists in Canada for Covid19 pandemic insurance. They are paying all dentists across the country except for British Columbia dentists. They have been collecting thousands of dollars over years from dentists in BC and now they refuse to honour the contract and pay them back when they have been hit so hard by the pandemic. Stay away from AvivaCanada. They are stealing money from people and are fraud and scammers. Beware!