11/15/2018 4:44:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

The United Kingdom and the European Union have agreed on a deal that will give London’s financial firms including insurers only a basic level of access to the bloc’s markets post Brexit, Reuters reported. Under the proposed deal, U.K. financial firms’ access to the EU would be based on equivalence similar to Japanese and U.S. firms’ level of access. U.K.-based law firm Hogan Lovells said that the equivalence rules cover just a quarter of all EU financial services business with the United Kingdom.

Gloria Gonzalez

11/28/2017 9:00:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

Pool Reinsurance Co. Ltd., the U.K. government-backed terrorism reinsurance backstop, will extend its cover to include material damage and direct business interruption caused by acts of terrorism using a cyber trigger, starting in April 2018.

The cover, which will exclude intangible assets, will be standard for all policyholders that purchase terrorism insurance from Pool Re members, London-based Pool Re said Tuesday in a statement.

The coverage extension is the culmination of more than two years of work and is based on a research study commissioned from the Centre for Risk Studies at University of Cambridge Judge Business School to further Pool Re’s understanding of the nature of the cyber terrorism threat.

The U.K. government gave preliminary approval for the expansion in coverage in September.

“We will continue to evolve our coverage, and today’s announcement is an effort to future-proof the scheme and to close a potential gap in coverage before it became apparent,” Pool Re Chief Executive Julian Enoizi said in the statement. “The threat from a cyber attack is evident, and businesses have become increasingly concerned about the extensive repercussions these types of attacks could have on them. This was a clear gap in our coverage which left businesses potentially exposed.”

Gloria Gonzalez

11/13/2018 1:22:00 PM

Source: Business Insurance

Pool Reinsurance Co. Ltd. is pushing forward with plans to offer nondamage business interruption coverage in light of the ongoing severe threat of terrorism in the United Kingdom.

Eight terrorist attacks in Great Britain since 2014 have resulted in 37 deaths and 261 injuries, while there have been 17 disrupted terrorist plots in that time, the U.K. government-backed terrorism reinsurance backstop said in a report published Tuesday.

“It is therefore unsurprising that the UK threat level from Islamist extremism remains at severe and is likely to remain so for the next 18 to 24 months,” the organization said in its report.

“Islamist extremism will continue to pose the main threat to the UK in the foreseeable future, with Daesh remaining the most effective global entity,” the report concluded. “The risk of a spectacular attack, by either (al Qaeda) or Daesh, cannot be discounted, nor can the growing threat posed by (Extreme Right Wing) terrorism.”

Pool Re is planning to cover nondamage business interruption once legislative changes are passed to allow the extension of such coverage, the organization said in its statement accompanying the report. From that point, Pool Re will be able to cover losses caused when businesses cannot operate because of a wide police cordon even though their premises may not be damaged, as happened in London’s Borough Market in June 2017.

If approved in Parliament, the new NDBI cover will include loss of trade caused by being unable to access, exit or use the insured’s premises because of the actions of the police or another statutory authority when responding to terrorist activity, according to the statement. It will also provide cover for loss of business as a result of a downturn in customer footfall at insured businesses within a mile of a terrorist incident.

Pool Re is hoping to provide the coverage beginning in January, according to the report.

In April 2018, Pool Re added new coverage for physical damage caused by an act of cyber terrorism. (see below)

Judy Greenwald

11/13/2018 7:00:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

SAN DIEGO — Active shooter coverage available in the market can cover a wide variety of potential liabilities for employers whose workers, customers and others are impacted by such an incident, experts say.

Laura Zaroski, Chicago-based area senior vice president, law firms practice, for Arthur J. Gallagher & Co., said active shooter coverage, which primarily comes out of London, with a handful of domestic insurers, can include counseling, medical disability expenses for victims, funeral expenses, death benefits, and “loss of attraction” coverage, when a mass shooting results in a loss of revenue because people are no longer coming to the location of the incident.

She spoke during a session at the Professional Liability Underwriting Society’s conference in San Diego on Thursday as attendees were still absorbing the news of the shooting in a Thousand Oaks, California, bar Wednesday in which 12 victims and the gunman died.

Ms. Zaroski said other coverages include the cost of upgrading a building and its security, damages to a building, relocation costs and sometimes the cost of a teardown following an incident

Thomas Lookstein, New York-based head of financial and professional line claims for Starr Adjustment Services, a division of the Starr Cos., said one question that should be addressed is whether these policies have terrorism exclusions.

Marchelle M. Houston, senior vice president, bond and specialty insurance, for The Travelers Cos. Inc., said another potential claim is kidnap and ransom, where people are unable to leave a facility during an incident. You have to look at the host of allegations and policy terms and conditions to determine other insurance issues as well as exclusions, she said.

Gavin Souter

11/8/2018 4:11:00 PM

Source: Business Insurance

Insurer and reinsurer Axis Capital Holdings Ltd. said on Thursday that it expects losses in the range of $100 million to $120 million from Hurricane Michael, which hit the southeastern United States last month.

The pretax loss estimate is net of reinsurance and retrocessional coverage and includes estimated reinstatement premiums, the Bermuda-based insurer said in a statement.

Axis said its loss estimate “is consistent with industry insured losses of approximately $10 billion.”

Hurricane Michael made landfall in the Florida panhandle on Oct. 10 as a Category 4 storm. While it is one of the most intense hurricanes on record to make landfall in the United States, it did not hit a major population area and insurance losses were limited.

Thomson Reuters

11/9/2018 11:13:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

(Reuters) — Three wind-whipped wildfires burned in California on Friday morning, including one that spurred the evacuation of 75,000 homes near a city that was still reeling from a mass shooting.

Voluntary evacuations of 75,000 homes were called for because of the Woolsey Fire that affected parts of Thousand Oaks, California, in Ventura County northwest of Los Angeles, the site of a shooting massacre this week.

A former U.S. Marine combat veteran opened fire in a bar packed with college students in the town on Wednesday night, killing 12 people and stunning a community with a reputation for safety.

An evacuation site was at capacity at the Thousand Oaks Teen Center, which had also served as a family assistance and reunification site following the shooting.

Several evacuation centers were issuing protective masks for citizens, Ventura County Emergency Services said. Many schools were closed in Ventura and Los Angeles counties.

Parts of the oceanside city of Malibu, about 30 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, were under evacuation orders, local media reported.

The Woolsey blaze also affected parts of Los Angeles County, where mandatory evacuation orders were in effect as of Friday morning south of U.S. Highway 101, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

Thomson Reuters

11/9/2018 9:03:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

(Reuters) — The U.S. government on Thursday filed a civil fraud lawsuit accusing UBS Group AG, Switzerland’s largest bank, of defrauding investors in its sale of residential mortgage-backed securities leading up to the 2008-09 global financial crisis.

UBS was accused of misleading investors about the quality of more than $41 billion of subprime and other risky mortgage loans backing 40 securities offerings in 2006 and 2007, the Department of Justice said in a complaint filed with the federal court in Brooklyn.

The lawsuit came after UBS rejected a government proposal that it pay nearly $2 billion to settle, according to a person familiar with the talks who was not authorized to speak publicly about them.

While UBS was not a big originator of U.S. residential home loans, U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue in Brooklyn said investors suffered “catastrophic losses” from the bank’s failure to fully disclose the risks of mortgage securities it helped sell.

11/7/2018 4:48:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

Pakistan’s Computer Emergency Response Team said that hackers breached payment card details of nearly 20,000 customers of 22 banks in the country, Samaa reported. The country’s computer security team said that the cyber attacks occurred in October and targeted BankIslami Pakistan Ltd., United Bank Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank (Pakistan) Ltd. and Bank Alfalah Ltd. among others.

11/7/2018 4:47:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

The World Bank Group plans to expand the Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance Co.’s operations to offer parametric disaster insurance to Pacific Island nations, Artemis.bm reports. The Pacific Catastrophe Risk Insurance has so far provided parametric earthquake and cyclone insurance protection to five Pacific Island nations with a risk pool of around $45 million. The World Bank plans to tap into private capital while expanding the range of parametric insurance products.

11/7/2018 4:55:00 AM

Source: Business Insurance

A report by Australia-based MetLife Insurance Ltd. found that more than a third of local small and medium-sized enterprises do not have a succession plan in place, Asia Insurance Review reported. More than half of SMEs would be able to operate for only up to a year if key persons were unable to work. Several SMEs did not have insurance for absence of key persons, trauma and disablement, the report added.