Our insured is a dentist with a Businessowners BP 00 02 form. The insured suffered a freeze-up loss, and the ensuing water damaged the dental chairs, which have a spit sink and water, as well as x-ray machines. The insured is looking for replacement of these items under the building coverage portion of the policy. Would you please advise your opinion as to whether or not these items would be covered under the building coverage?

Massachusetts Subscriber

The items you mention could be considered fixtures—and covered under the building portion of the policy—depending on how they are attached to the building.  

Couch on Insurance (Third Edition) states the following: “Generally, items that can be removed from a structure without doing substantial damage to it are regarded as movable property rather than fixtures…The insurance on a building may include electric ceiling fans and chandeliers which are so attached to the insured building as not to be removable without damaging or defacing the building…Fixtures remain fixtures though temporarily removed from the structure to which they are normally attached; as where screen doors and windows are in storage during the winter.” Couch adds that “[t]he term 'store fixtures' has been held to include shelving enclosed within rails as well as a refrigerator, meat box, sausage grinder and scales used in a meat market.”

But, if the dental chairs and x-ray machines can be removed without damaging the building, they would fall under the business personal property category.