If you followed the CNN link from my post, you saw a direct quotation. In that, he weaves back and forth between different ways of discussing the issue and in one case appears to concede that if you “see the word pandemic mentioned,” that exclusion should be honored while also managing to suggest that if you don’t “see it,” then liability should attach.

There are two main exclusions understood to exclude pandemic. One of them specifically mentions “communicable disease” and presumably he was conceding that one. Another excludes interruption coverage not arising from physical damage to buildings, inventories, etc. His statement strongly suggests that he thinks that exclusion should be knocked out because it isn’t explicit enough in using the word pandemic. That’s a radical position, the sort I’d expect from some policyholder lawyers but not from neutrals, and it’s why the story made considerable waves in the insurance community.

We can all hope that sounder voices are by now reaching him and that he won’t float this sort of thing again.