Nearly a year after the abrupt cancellation of his Saint Pablo tour due to a mental breakdown, Kanye West is now going on the offensive, taking his insurance company to court and seeking a $10 million payout.
West is suing multiple syndicates of insurer Lloyds of London according to The Hollywood Reporter. The report states that West filed a loss claim with the syndicate following his admission into UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital Center in November 2016. However, he and his touring company, Very Good Touring, Inc. have not been paid more than eight months after the claim was filed and the insurers are stalling on payments.
In the complaint filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday ‘Ye’s lawyers argued that Lloyd’s haven’t “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.” Adding, “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.”
The Saint Pablo Tour originally planned to run from August all the way to November of last year with 38-dates in total. Kanye abruptly cancelled two dates following news of his wife, Kim Kardashian-West being robbed at gunpoint in Paris in October. West’s resumed the tour a few weeks later only to dive into lengthy rants about Hilary Clinton, support of Donald Trump, remarks about Jay-Z and Beyoncé and that people were out to get him. The tour was cancelled soon after when West checked himself into the hospital for mental exhaustion.
In summation, Kanye’s lawyer wrote of Lloyd’s, “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.”
