DENVER — When viruses shut down ski operations at Canadian Mountain Holidays and Ontario’s Blue Mountain Resort in 2015 and 2018, Lexington Insurance Co. paid the resort owners $200,000 in business interruption claims.

But when the coronavirus pandemic shut down the two ski operations in March 2020 — and more than a dozen others owned by Denver-based Alterra Mountain Co. — Lexington declined to cover more than $200 million in lost business for the privately held ski area operator.

“The only reason Lexington handled” the COVID-19 business interruption claim differently than the previous two virus claims “was solely on the ground that the current claim is much larger that the prior claims,” reads a breach of contract lawsuit filed this week by Alterra Mountain Co. in Denver District Court seeking a jury trial to force Lexington to pay claims for $200 million in lost business stemming from the government-mandated shutdown of ski resorts across North America due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Alterra’s lawsuit, which cites Colorado law allowing it to collect double the covered benefit that was “unreasonably delayed or denied,” argues Lexington declined the loss-of-business claims so it could protect its bottom line.

Alterra says its resorts have paid Lexington “millions of dollars in premiums” for “broad all-risk coverage” in case of physical losses or damage arising from many scenarios, including infectious or contagious disease that prompts a public authority to close a resort. Alterra’s lawsuit argues Lexington has denied coverage “systematically and categorically” for not just the resort operator, but all policyholders that filed pandemic-related business loss claims in North America.

Read more at ColoradoSun.com.