predefined area or emergency declarations from local or state authorities .
" The outcome has been that policyholders have worked with carriers to develop policy language that could provide for coverage should there be a future pandemic ," he said .
Daniel Healy of Brown Rudnick said that he believed many COVID claims were successfully resolved out of court , while policyholders who provided incomplete or premature explanations and support for their claims faced difficult , protracted or frustrating claims processes .
" There are some lessons learned here in terms of policyholders , perhaps naively , just telling their insurance companies what they might have understood to be going on , without having really investigated the issue and found out the facts ," he told Law360 .
Still , for all the lessons that persist from policyholders ' mostly failed efforts to recover from their policies , perhaps the most lasting one will be a greater suspicion of relying on policies in the wake of calamity .
Healy told Law360 that it was frustrating that so many courts used insuring clauses in seemingly all-risk policies to deny coverage for COVID claims , and advised policyholders to make sure their policies truly covered all risks without exclusions .
" There ' s a reason policyholders are buying insurance : It ' s for that event that they can ' t plan around and mitigate and avoid ," he said .
--Additional reporting by Jennifer Mandato , Hope Patti , Elizabeth Daley and P . J . D ' Annunzio . Editing by Nick Petruncio .
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