Why One Music Venue Is Taking Their Insurance Company to Court

Legal battles are brewing between music venues and insurance companies — and Ivy Room is ready to fight. “We’re fighting, fighting, fighting every day to hang in there,” Summer Gerbing, co-owner of the Albany, CA music venue near San Francisco, tells Rolling Stone. As the named plaintiff in a new class action legal complaint, Ivy Room is hoping to represent other California music venues who may have purchased insurance from the defendant, First Mercury Insurance Company.

Gerbing and partner Lani Torres say they’ve paid thousands of dollars for comprehensive, premium insurance to protect themselves from unexpected scenarios of business interruption. They believe that insurance agencies are taking advantage of vague, overarching language that would exclude instances of virus and bacteria, arguing that the magnitude of the current crisis is unprecedented.