Kanye West Suing Insurers For $10M After They Fail To Pay For Canceled Concerts

Kanye West‘s touring company Very Good Touring is suing multiple Lloyd’s of London affiliates for breaching insurance contracts upwards of $10 million.

KANYE WEST NEWS: SUES INSURANCE COMPANIES

West canceled several concert appearances last year due to family and medical issues. His touring company is now suing the concert insurance companies for failing to pay for the $9.8 million in concert losses, in addition to attorney fees and punitive damages.

West skipped out on a few dates when his wife Kim Kardashian West was held up at gunpoint in her Paris apartment, and then canceled the end dates of his tour after admitting himself to UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital last November. Very Good Touring claims that the insurance should protect against “accidental bodily injury or illness” for the duration of the tour, and that his hospitalization counts.

The company also claims that West and 11 of his associates have given statements under oath to the insurers, who have yet to pay or deny the claim. Very Good Touring is seeking a jury trial for the case.

“Nor have they provided anything approaching a coherent explanation about why they have not paid, or any indication if they will ever pay or even make a coverage decision, implying that Kanye’s use of marijuana may provide them with a basis to deny the claim and retain the hundreds of thousands of dollars in insurance premiums paid by Very Good,” the complaint filed Tuesday reads. “The stalling is emblematic of a broader modus operandi of the insurers of never-ending post-claim underwriting where the insurers hunt for some contrived excuse not to pay.”

West’s lawyer Howard King told The Hollywood Reporter, “Performing artists who pay handsomely to insurance companies within the Lloyd’s of London marketplace to obtain show tour ‘non-appearance or cancellation’ insurance should take note of the lesson to be learned from this lawsuit: Lloyd’s companies enjoy collecting bounteous premiums; they don’t enjoy paying claims, no matter how legitimate. Their business model thrives on conducting unending ‘investigations,’ of bona fide coverage requests, stalling interminably, running up their insured’s costs, and avoiding coverage decisions based on flimsy excuses. The artists think they they’re buying peace of mind. The insurers know they’re just selling a ticket to the courthouse.”