Northeast Ohio business denied insurance claim after losing nearly $45,000 during the historic power outage

CLEVELAND, Ohio (WOIO) – The impact of that historic power outage here in Northeast Ohio is still being felt. At least one local business saying its insurance claim for tens of thousands of dollars has been rejected by its insurance company, Mesa Underwriters Specialty Insurance Company of Pennsylvania.

It’s been just about two weeks since the storms knocked out power to nearly half a million customers in Northeast Ohio.

Sean Watterson, a Co-Owner of Happy Dog on Detroit Avenue says the business lost nearly $45,000 between lost food products and a week’s worth of business, “The insurance company is cashing our checks, and then when we needed them the most, the reason you buy insurance, that’s when they walked away from us.”

Watterson tells 19 News he’s still in shock after being notified by the insurance company that they’ve refused to cover their claim, “We lost close to $15,000 in product that we had in-house, and a typical weeks worth of business here is $30,000 and you don’t make that back — you don’t get that week back.”

What’s perplexing to Watterson is that after 16 years of insurance payments and no others claims filed in all those years, why Happy Dog was denied being reimbursed for the crippling storms is still unclear,

“The fact that power got knocked out by the storm they seem to be saying because the storm itself didn’t damage you, it’s just the loss of power, we’re not going to cover you for that.”

Watterson says it’s like trying to survive COVID all over again, “For us it was almost PTSD because we had to shut down at the start of COVID and having living through that once that’s not something we ever wanted to go through again.”

The weather crisis could literally have destroyed their business according to Watterson, had it not been for a grant through the National Independent Vendor’s Association that helped them cover some immediate needs, “Very easily could have taken us under if we didn’t have that cashflow support, we would be going out trying to get payday lender loans. You don’t sell insurance and then welch out on the claims when the storm hits.”

Happy Dog’s owners have now filed a complaint with Ohio’s Department of Insurance.

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