Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. · TDI license #5595
A fire, a burst pipe or a storm closes the building, and the bills do not close with it. Payroll, rent, the loan payment and the insurance all keep running while nothing is coming in. Business income coverage — the reason people search for business interruption insurance — is the part of a commercial policy built for that gap.
It is rarely a policy of its own. It is usually a coverage inside the one you already have, which makes the first useful question not “should I buy it” but “what does mine already say”.
Start here
Business income and extra expense coverage is commonly included in, or added to, a commercial property insurance policy or a business owner’s policy. That is not a technicality. The income coverage depends on the property coverage to decide whether the damage was covered at all, which is why the two are sold together and why reading them apart causes so much trouble.
So the practical work is rarely shopping for a new product. It is finding out whether the coverage is on your policy, what limit it carries, how the form measures the loss, and which of the extensions below were bought and which were not.
Source: TDI — business insurance guidance. Verified .
Three questions, in order
A business income claim is decided in a chain, and each link can end it. Working through them in order is the fastest way to know where you actually stand.
One
Was there direct physical loss or damage?
This is the link that surprises people, and it is the one that ends most enquiries. Business income coverage generally starts from physical loss of or damage to property. A quiet quarter, a lost contract, a landlord dispute or a customer who stopped calling is not a trigger, however real the lost income is.
Two
Was the cause of that damage covered?
The property coverage decides this, not the income coverage. If the peril that damaged the building is excluded from the underlying policy, the income side has nothing to attach to. This is where the two most common Gulf-coast gaps live, and both of them are worth checking before a storm rather than after one.
Three
Did the loss meet the form’s own terms?
Even with covered damage from a covered cause, the form still decides the rest: whether the suspension has to be total or can be partial, whether a waiting period applies, how the period of restoration is defined and when it ends, what limit applies, and how the financial loss is measured. Two businesses with the same fire can land in different places here.
Extensions can change the answer at links two and three — that is exactly what they are for. None of them changes it automatically, and none of them is on a policy that did not buy it.
The money
Owners usually picture lost revenue. The forms are built around something narrower and, once you see it, more logical: the profit the business would have made, plus the costs that carried on regardless.
The profit half
Business income is generally net income plus normal continuing operating expenses — not gross revenue. That distinction disappoints people at exactly the wrong moment, which is why it belongs at the front of the conversation rather than in a claim letter.
The continuing half
Rent, loan payments, insurance, utilities and the other costs that do not pause because the building did. These are the reason a business with modest profit can still have a serious income loss.
Many forms, not all
Payroll is included under many policies and not under every one, and some forms treat ordinary payroll differently from key employees or limit it to a stated number of days. Keeping a trained crew together is often the whole reason an owner wants this coverage, so it is worth reading rather than assuming.
A different question
Necessary costs to keep operating or to resume sooner — a temporary location, rented equipment, overtime, expedited freight. Some forms extend to it following covered physical damage. It is not unlimited, and on some policies it is a separate limit rather than a share of the income limit.
Never automatic
These are the parts owners assume they have. Each one is a real coverage that some forms carry and some do not, and each has its own conditions on top.
Access restricted
Some forms extend cover where access to your premises is restricted because of covered damage to nearby property. It is not "the government closed us" — the trigger is damage-driven and the extension usually carries its own distance limits, waiting period and time cap.
Someone else’s damage
Sometimes called contingent business interruption. When included, it can address loss that follows damage to a supplier, a customer, or a business that draws traffic to yours. Locations usually have to be scheduled, and the conditions vary a great deal.
Power, water, communications
An off-premises power, water or communications failure does not automatically start this coverage. An extension may be required, and some forms exclude overhead transmission lines — which, in a region that loses power to storms, is the specific sentence to check.
After the doors reopen
Trade rarely returns to normal on the day a business reopens. When included, this can address continuing loss for a stated period after operations resume. Only if included, and only for that period.
Source: TDI — business insurance guidance. Verified .
Two local gaps
Storm damage and where the property coverage sits. At coastal addresses and parts of Harris County facing Galveston Bay, wind and hail can be excluded from a commercial property policy and placed separately, often through the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. When that happens the income coverage does not automatically follow: the association’s business-income cover is an endorsement rather than a standalone policy, and it attaches only where the association is also carrying the direct property coverage. It is address-specific, so it is a question for your address rather than a rule for the city. Placement and limits belong on our commercial property page.
Rising water is a separate policy, and a separate gap. Most commercial property policies exclude flood. A National Flood Insurance Program commercial policy can address the building and its contents — but it does not address financial loss from interruption or loss of use. A business can be fully paid for the damage and entirely uncovered for the months it could not trade, which is the single most expensive surprise in this subject and the reason it is worth raising before a season rather than during one.
Sources: TDI — commercial property insurance guide; FEMA — NFIP commercial coverage; TWIA — 2026 guidelines, as filed with TDI. Verified .
A different trigger
Every link in the chain above starts from physical loss or damage. A network encrypted overnight, a system taken offline, a vendor outage that stops your ordering — none of those damaged the building, so none of them starts this coverage. Downtime caused by a data or network-security event is answered by cyber insurance instead, on its own terms and with its own waiting period.
The two are not alternatives and buying one does not settle the other. They answer different causes, and a business that could be closed by either one has two conversations to have rather than a choice to make.
Getting the number right
Business income limits are one of the easiest things on a commercial policy to get quietly wrong, because the number is a forecast rather than a value you can look up. A worksheet helps — it is a planning aid for choosing a limit, not a calculation of what a claim will pay.
The timeline is where most estimates go wrong. Owners tend to price a rebuild and forget the permitting, the contractor’s queue and the ramp back to normal trade afterwards — which is the part extended business income exists for, when it is included.
Keep the same records current for a different reason: if a claim ever happens, profit and loss statements, sales records, tax returns, rent rolls and payroll records are what it gets proved with. Do not send any of that through the form on this page. It comes later, by phone or through a route we will name.
No obligation
Bring the declarations page and tell us what the business does, where it operates, and how long a bad month would have to run before it hurt. We will work out what the current coverage says, where the gaps are, and what a sensible limit looks like for your timeline. The phone is fastest: (281) 484-8320, or use the form below.
Already have a loss in progress? Report it to your insurer under your policy’s own reporting terms first — that clock is not ours to hold — and then call us. We can help you work through what the form asks for: file a claim.
Monday to Thursday, 9:00 to 5:00; Friday, 9:00 to 4:00. 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034. Policies written statewide — you do not have to be local.
No. It generally responds to financial loss when a business cannot operate because of direct physical loss of or damage to property by a covered peril. A downturn, a lost contract or a voluntary closure is not a trigger. Some forms extend to related situations — restricted access after covered damage nearby, or damage to a supplier — but those are extensions with their own conditions, not the general rule.
Rent and similar costs are the kind of normal continuing operating expense the coverage is generally built around, alongside the net income the business would have earned. Payroll is included under many policies but not all, and some forms treat it separately or cap it at a number of days. Read the payroll wording on your own policy rather than assuming either answer.
Not automatically. An off-premises utility failure generally needs a utility-service interruption extension, and some forms exclude overhead transmission lines even then. If the outage followed covered physical damage at your own premises, that is a different and more straightforward question.
Those are two perils and they are handled separately. Wind and hail can be excluded at coastal and bay-facing addresses, in which case the direct damage is placed differently and the income coverage follows whatever carries the property. Flood is excluded from most commercial property policies, and an NFIP commercial policy covers the building and contents without addressing financial loss from interruption or loss of use. That gap is worth knowing about before a storm season, not after.
That is dependent property, sometimes called contingent business interruption. Some policies include it and many require the locations to be scheduled. The conditions vary enough that the only reliable answer is the one on your own form.
There is no universal number. The form defines a period of restoration — generally running from the covered suspension until the property is repaired, rebuilt or replaced, or reasonably could have been — and it may add a waiting period at the start, a maximum at the end, and a limit that can be reached before either. Extended business income, when included, continues for its own stated period after reopening.
Usually it is not bought by itself. Business income and extra expense coverage is commonly included in, or added to, a commercial property policy or a business owner’s policy, because it depends on that policy to decide whether the damage was covered in the first place. The practical question is almost always what your existing property coverage already says.
Moon Insurance Managers, Inc. — 360 FM 1959, Houston, TX 77034 — (281) 484-8320