In both cases, businesses had to deal with the aftermath, a process which often includes reaching out to an insurance<\/a> company to make a claim for damaged property, lost inventory, or, in some cases, injury to a customer. In the cases of the ceiling savage and the booze bandit<\/a>, how would insurance play a role? That depends on two important factors, said Franklin Manchester, principal global insurance advisor at analytics firm SAS. <\/p>\n \u201cThe first question I would ask in this scenario is whether the raccoon was indeed a wild animal or the property\/pet of someone who could be identified,\u201d Manchester told The Independent by email. <\/p>\n This is an important question because it can dictate whether the claim will be a business or personal insurance matter<\/a>. <\/p>\n If the raccoon or other animal is not a pet<\/p>\n If a business lost inventory or patrons suffered damage from an animal incident, and the animal wasn\u2019t someone\u2019s pet, the business would likely be liable and would need to file a claim through its commercial general liability policy, Manchester said. <\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n Raccoons have been wreaking havoc on businesses; but commercial general liability insurance policies may cover the damage (Getty Images\/iStockphoto)<\/p>\n Yet filing a claim isn\u2019t a guarantee that your insurance carrier will actually cover the incident. Why? The principle of \u201cknown issue,\u201d Manchester said. <\/p>\n If you knew your restaurant vulnerabilities, like gaping holes in a wall or an entry point in your building\u2019s roof that wasn\u2019t supposed to be there, your insurer might deny your claim since you knew about the condition that helped cause the claim. Either way, your insurer will send out someone to investigate what happened. <\/p>\n They might first look at evidence of how many raccoons there are and if there are obvious entry points where an animal could get in. <\/p>\n \u201cThe investigator would want to determine if this is\u2026 a group of raccoons … or an individual raccoon,\u201d he said. \u201cHow did it get into the restaurant in the first place? Were windows, downspouts, and doors secured?\u201d<\/p>\n open image in gallery<\/p>\n If an animal causes extensive damage to a small business, commercial insurance policies might provide coverage if the situation meets several criteria (Samantha Martin)<\/p>\n If the investigator finds evidence of an infestation or rats, squirrels, or other animals that caused damage, your insurer may ask if you knew about the infestation. If you didn\u2019t, the chances of your claim may improve.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it’s not an infestation, and if those entry points were secured, and it is indeed a wild animal, then the insurance company may ask \u2018Did you know about the raccoon,\u2019 and try to deny the loss under a \u2018known issue\u2019 exclusion,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Even if you check all the boxes for preventative measures and you had no idea raccoons were afoot, there\u2019s one last scenario that might put you in jeopardy of not having coverage for your customer\u2019s medical issues due to certain animal-borne diseases.<\/p>\n \u201cTypically communicable disease is excluded… So, if the patron was bitten and contracted rabies, that could be excluded,\u201d Manchester said. <\/p>\n And, finally, if the damage is so bad that you have to shut down your business, you may be able to get compensation for loss of business through a business policy\u2019s business interruption insurance. This type of insurance helps recover some or all of the cost of certain expenses such as revenue, lease and loan payments, taxes, and payroll, according to insurance carrier The Hartford<\/a>. <\/p>\n If the raccoon is someone\u2019s pet<\/p>\n Raccoons and other animals causing damage to a business property or injuring a guest can be a headache for a business, unless the animal in question was a pet, Manchester said. In that case, the pet owner\u2019s personal liability coverage \u2013 not business liability coverage \u2013 would be involved. <\/p>\n \u201cNow if the raccoon is someone’s pet \u2013 say they left it in the car, which it then escaped in the parking lot and climbed into the ceiling \u2013 then the liability for the owner’s personal policy would come into play,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n But like other scenarios, there are several factors that could put the claim in jeopardy. For example, an insurer might try to argue that raccoons are exotic pets, and therefore not covered by personal liability insurance. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[90,56,54,55,4407],"class_list":{"0":"post-335267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-uk","10":"tag-united-kingdom","11":"tag-unitedkingdom","12":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Raccoons](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/iStock-1047163322.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"If](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/1766685188_321_Virginia_Drunk_Raccoon_50869.jpg\")
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