A group of restaurants in North Carolina has joined the North Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association (NCRLA) in asking the North Carolina Supreme Court to bypass the Court of Appeals and consider an insurer's appeal of a trial court decision that found there was coverage for COVID-19 business interruptions under the insurance policy.

North State Deli was the lead plaintiff in a group of 16 restaurants that filed the lawsuit seeking coverage for COVID-19 related business income losses. The case resulted in a rare win for the policyholders. More than 1,600 COVID-19 business interruption insurance coverage lawsuits have been filed and of the dozens that have been decided, most courts have found that the pandemic did not cause physical loss or damage to insured property.

In the underlying case, the court found that the government orders that closed restaurants in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 constituted a direct physical loss that was covered by the insurance policy that Cincinnati Insurance issued to the restaurants. Different from other COVID-19 cases, the attorneys here plead that the government orders caused the physical loss of property. Other cases have argued that damage was caused by the novel coronavirus. In the underlying case, the court found that if "physical loss" requires structural alteration to property, then the term "physical damage" would be rendered meaningless. The court also found that nothing in the applicable policies excluded coverage for the losses, as the policies lacked virus exclusions.