All posts by Jeff Dunsavage

Industry Financials, Insurers and the Economy

Triple-I Global Outlook: Continued Pressure on Investments & Premiums

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The COVID-19 pandemic continues to depress economic growth around the world, with nearly every country experiencing declines in gross domestic product (GDP) – the total value of goods and services produced. GDP growth for the world’s 10 largest insurance markets is expected to decrease by 6.99 percent in 2020, compared to Triple-I’s previous estimate of a 4.9 percent decrease. 

Forward-looking growth proxies, such as interest rates, government spending, equity markets, and commodity prices, are sending mixed to negative messages about growth into 2021. 

Against this backdrop, Triple-I experts report, the global insurance industry has continued to issue new policies, service existing ones, and process and pay claims. While the final numbers on the extent of the pandemic and recession’s impact on the industry won’t be clear until 2021-2022, early indicators point to flat premium growth in 2020 globally and to significant differences in how the pandemic, monetary policy, and the recession are affecting insurers in the United States versus abroad. 

In its Global Macro and Insurance Outlook for the third quarter, published this week, Triple-I noted that global central banks kept benchmark interest rates mostly on hold in the third quarter at an average of 0.6 percent, reflecting the limits imposed by near-zero interest rates policies. 

Concerns about lower long-term interest rates are increasing as global central banks have pushed rates even lower during the pandemic, the report says. In a recent survey, about 33 percent of U.S. insurers said they assume flat long-term benchmark rates, while 50 percent reported having changed, or say they are in the process of changing, their investment strategy. These changes are likely to accelerate now that the U.S. Federal Reserve officially changed the focus of its monetary policy and central banks around the world follow.  

Interest rates matter because insurers get the bulk of their profits from investment earnings. U.S. insurers, in particular, rely on fixed-income financial instruments like corporate and government bonds.  If lower interest rates put pressure on insurers’ investment earnings, they will have to compensate by raising premiums paid by policyholders or adjusting their risk profiles to reduce claim payouts.   

“COVID-19 and lower economic activity continue to hinder premium growth in property, workers compensation, and auto,” the report says, “while a recent survey indicates that COVID-19 led to a reduction in life premium.” 

The report says it’s too early to determine whether increasing demand for warranty, indemnity, and cyber coverage and a surge of interest in captive insurers will make up for  downward pressure on premium growth across the industry. 

Catastrophes, Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience

Battling Fires, California Also Struggles to Keep Homeowners Insured

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The Los Angeles office of the National Weather Service predicted prolonged, potentially record-setting heat and dangerous weather conditions throughout California this summer – and, some experts expect it to continue for some time beyond.

“If you like 2020, you’re going to love 2050,” said Michael Gerrard, director of Columbia University’s Sabin Center for Climate Change Law, in a recent Los Angeles Times article.

These conditions can only exacerbate this year’s atypical wildfire activity in the state. So, it should be no surprise that California is grappling with how to stop insurers from abandoning fire-prone areas, leaving countless homeowners at risk.

“Years of megafires have caused huge losses for insurance companies, a problem so severe that, last year, California temporarily banned insurers from canceling policies on some 800,000 homes in or near risky parts of the state,” The New York Times reports. “However, that ban is about to expire and can’t be renewed, and a recent plan to deal with the problem fell apart in a clash between insurers and consumer advocates.”

Insurers are widely expected to continue their retreat.

“The marketplace has largely collapsed” in high-risk areas, said Graham Knaus, executive director of the California State Association of Counties. “It’s a very large geographic area of the state that is facing this.”

California, where regulations lean toward consumer protection, is particularly challenged. The state doesn’t let insurers set premiums based on what they expect in future damages. They can only set rates based on prior losses. They also aren’t allowed to pass along reinsurance costs to policyholders – costs that are expected to rise as fire risks worsen.

State lawmakers introduced a bill to let insurers writing coverage in wildfire-prone areas incorporate climate predictions and other costs into their rate requests in return for making coverage more available and offering discounts to people who take steps to reduce their home’s vulnerability.

Insurers supported the change, as did the counties association and the union representing firefighters. But the bill faced strong opposition from consumer groups, who ultimately prevailed. Last month, the state senate stripped most of the provisions from the bill and directed the insurance commissioner to review the current rules and report back to the legislature in two years.

The legislature ended its session without acting on the revised version. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said his focus now is working with high-risk communities to reduce their wildfire risk enough that insurers will keep offering coverage without big rate increases.

“If Californians do our part to protect homes from wildfire,” Lara said, the industry should respond by agreeing to insure those homes.

Janet Ruiz, Triple-I’s director of strategic communications, said, “Insurers in California are working with legislators and the California Department of Insurance to find solutions to keep homeowners insured in wildfire risk areas. The industry supports mitigation efforts, the California FAIR Plan, and the proposed IMAP program.”

Catastrophes, Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience

Laura Loss Estimates:$4 Billion to $13 Billion

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This blog post has been updated based on new information received since it was first published on September 4, 2020.

Hurricane Laura may have caused as little as $4 billion of insured damage or as much as $13 billion, according to early estimates.

Property information, analytics and data provider CoreLogic said residential and commercial insured losses from Hurricane Laura in Louisiana and Texas will come in at between $8 billion and $12 billion. Most of the property damage occurred in southwest Louisiana, where Laura made landfall early as a Category 4 hurricane with 150 mph winds.

Catastrophe risk modeler RMS puts the range between $9 billion and $13 billion. This includes wind and storm surge losses of between $8.5 billion and $12 billion, inland flood losses of $100 million to $400 million, and National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) losses of $400 million to $600 million.

Catastrophe risk modeling firm Air Worldwide said it expects losses related to Laura to fall in the $4 billion to $8 billion range. The combination of the storm’s track through less-populated areas and its relatively small “Rmax” – the distance from the center of the storm to the location of the maximum winds – should keep insured losses down somewhat, the company said.

Cat risk modeler Karen Clark & Co. estimates insured onshore property losses from wind and storm surge will likely amount to $8.7 billion in the U.S. and $200 million in the Caribbean. Its estimate includes the privately insured wind and storm surge damage to residential, commercial, and industrial properties and automobiles but not losses covered by the NFIP or losses to offshore assets.

All estimates are subject to change as more information becomes available.

Catastrophes, Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience, Flood Insurance

Hurricane Season:More Than Wind & Water

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Under the best of circumstances, the Atlantic hurricane season is a challenging time. Despite improved forecasting and analytical tools, pre-storm communication, and engineering, hurricane-related losses continue to climb.

But the 2020 season hasn’t come during the best of circumstances. This extremely active season arrived on the heels of a pandemic that hasn’t ebbed, accompanied by civil unrest and atypical wildfire activity that could draw attention and resources away from preparation and post-storm aid.

And, as if that wasn’t enough, it falls in the middle of what is arguably the most contentious, chaotic U.S. election year in modern history.

To say these new variables complicate resilience would be a gross understatement in a year whose (to use the technical insurance phrase) “general weirdness” would be difficult to overstate.

So, in a paper published today we review the current state of hurricane resilience – how forecasting, modeling, preparation, and mitigation have evolved – and how the insurance industry is working to help communities bounce back from hurricanes.

Demographics more than climate change

Nine of the 10 costliest hurricanes in U.S. history have occurred since 2004, and 2017, 2018, and 2019 were the largest back-to-back-to-back insured property loss years in U.S. history. Many would instinctively chalk up such numbers to climate change. But a careful look at the data suggests climate change isn’t the predominant driver of losses.

U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that the number of housing units in the United States increased most dramatically since 1940 in areas that are most vulnerable to weather-related damage. They also show that new homes are bigger and more expensive than in past decades.

Bigger homes full of more valuables, more cars and infrastructure in disaster-prone locales – these, more than climate trends, seem to be the dominant factors driving losses.

Not more, but wetter

Hurricanes may not be more frequent or significantly more intense due to climate change, but they seem to be getting wetter. Inland flooding has caused more deaths in the United States in the past 30 years than any other hurricane-related threat.

Early in the 2020 season, Tropical Storm Cristobal made landfall along southeastern Louisiana and triggered flash flooding as far inland as northwest Wisconsin.  

“As the atmosphere continues to warm, storms can hold more moisture and bring more rainfall,” said Triple-I non-resident scholar and Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Dr. Philip Klotzbach. This trend could be exacerbated if, as some experts expect, storms begin traveling more slowly, adding to the moisture they would pick up from the ocean and drop over land.

This is why experts we talk with say, “Get flood insurance.”

We’ve come a long way – and have further to go

Our paper also looks at the evolution of hurricane modeling and forecasting, as well as developments in preparation and mitigation.

Better data and improved modeling have made private insurers comfortable writing coverage, like flood insurance, that was previously considered “untouchable” and enabled the creation of entirely new types of insurance products.

But challenges remain. Experts disagree as to which models are best, and the proprietary nature of these models can make it hard for regulators to determine whether filed rates based on them are unfairly discriminatory.

Hurricane preparation and damage mitigation have benefited from improved communication and public planning.

“Many people still don’t evacuate the way they should,” says Todd Blachier of Church Mutual Insurance, “but states like Louisiana, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi have gotten much better in terms of shutting down inbound roads and creating one-way egress to facilitate evacuation.”

He says officials are acting much more quickly and communicating more effectively, thanks in large part to improved information from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and other resources.

One area in which improvements could boost resilience is building codes and standards. A recent Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) study quantified the losses avoided due to buildings being constructed according to modern, hazard-resistant codes and standards. In California and Florida — two of the most catastrophe-prone states — FEMA found adopting and enforcing modern codes over the past 20 years led to a long-term average future savings of $1 billion per year for those two states combined.

Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience

Hurricane Laura Update: 8/27/2020

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Damage reports from Hurricane Laura are coming in. Lake Charles, La., was especially hard hit, and there are reports of a chemical leak nearby.

Laura made landfall near Cameron, La., as an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in an early-morning bulletin that Laura had weakened to a Category 3 hurricane, with rapid weakening forecast, and the storm has since been downgraded to a Category 1 as it heads northward.

“Lake Charles experienced severe wind damage but seems not to have seen the amount of storm surge that was feared,” said Triple-I non-resident scholar and Colorado State University atmospheric scientist Dr. Philip Klotzbach.  

Despite the downgrade, the hurricane still had sustained winds of more than 100 mph. Heavy rain is predicted to be widespread across the west-central Gulf Coast, with five to 10 inches falling over a broad area, and locally up to 18 inches, leading to flash flooding.

The storm is now tracking inland across western Louisiana with damaging winds and is an inland flood risk as far north and east as Arkansas and the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. 

“The threat of tornadoes today and even tomorrow also exists as the storm recurves into the Tennessee Valley,” Klotzbach said. 

Catastrophes, Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience

Atypical Wildfire Activity? Of Course — It’s 2020

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If you need any further evidence of the anomalous nature of the year 2020, you can take a look at California’s wildfires. Two of the three largest fires in California history rage across the state, alongside about 600 others, burning more than 1.3 million acres — an area about the size of Delaware — and forcing more than 100,000 people to evacuate.

Those of us who aren’t directly affected may have become jaded enough to think, “More fires in the West. That’s normal.”

But as Janet Ruiz, Triple-I’s California-based director of strategic communications, explains, “We’ve had a significant number of large wildfires since 2015, but this year is anything but normal.”

Your first clue might be the alphabet soup of names applied to this year’s blazes: LNU, CZU, SCU. You might remember Northern California’s major wildfires in recent years — the Camp Fire, the Carr Fire, Tubbs, Ferguson — and wonder why this year’s don’t have similarly straightforward names.

According to California fire officials, it’s because the number of fires has required them to be grouped together in “complexes”:

  • The LNU Lightning Complex in the northeast Bay Area, including Sonoma, Napa, Solano, and Lake counties.
  • The CZU Lightning Complex in the western and southern Bay Area, including San Mateo and Santa Cruz counties.
  • The SCU Lightning Complex in the eastern and southeastern Bay Area, including Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties, and neighboring San Joaquin and Stanislaus counties.

“We only group fires like that when we have a lightning siege as such,” Brice Bennet, a public information officer for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (Cal Fire), told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The last major lightning siege was in 2008.

“Once the fires are grouped into a complex,” the Chronicle explains, “they’re managed so fire managers can assess all the different fires within each one and share resources across the greatest need — life being first, and property second. That’s where the prefixes come in. Those monikers are geographical locators based on Cal Fire administrative unit codes.”

Ruiz explained that many of the fires since 2015 were caused by human activity, rather than nature.

“Authorities have worked hard and invested a lot of money to mitigate those causes,” she said. “Then along comes this unpredictable, unpreventable abundance of lightning strikes.”

Fewer firefighters: Thanks, COVID-19

The daunting number of blazes coincides with a reduced availability of firefighters, courtesy of the coronavirus pandemic.

“In past seasons, a lot of help came from inmates recruited to assist in firefighting,” Ruiz said. “Many of these have been released because of COVID-19 and therefore aren’t available.”

Less warning, preparation paramount

Lightning is a universal metaphor for random ill fortune, and the chaotic causation of California’s 2020 fires has affected how authorities communicate with residents about impending threats.

“Normally you’d get warnings about approaching fires, followed, if necessary, by a mandatory evacuation order,” Ruiz said. But last week, when Ruiz was evacuated, “We didn’t get an advisory – we were just told to go.”

Wisely, she and her husband keep “to go” bags near their front door and were able to leave within 10 minutes of receiving the order.

A year characterized by a global pandemic, historic civil unrest, an “extremely active” hurricane season, a destructive derecho – not to mention the more bizarre entomological offerings of murder hornets, zombie cicadas, and invasive “jumping” earthworms – is no time to forgo caution where wildfire safety is concerned.

Ruiz reminds us that this fire season is still young, and more and worse may be in store.

Further Reading:

Safeguard Your Business From Wildfires: Allianz and Triple-I Team Up on Mitigation

Wildfires and Insurance: Learn How to Prepare Financially

Facts and Stats: Wildfire

Are You Financially Prepared for a Wildfire?

Knowing Insurance Is Part of Wildfire Preparedness

Fighting Wildfires With Innovation

Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience

Laura and Marco Set Sights on Northern Gulf Coast

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Tropical storms Laura and Marco are expected to hit the northern Gulf Coast within a few days of each other. Marco was a hurricane on Sunday but has weakened considerably due to strong southwesterly wind shear. 

While Marco’s wind threat has diminished, heavy rain of three to six inches, with small areas potentially receiving 10 inches of rainfall are possible along the north-central and northeast Gulf Coast, according to the National Hurricane Center.  Storm surge of two to four feet also is possible from Morgan City, LA, to Ocean Springs, MS.  Marco is expected to make landfall later today in southeast Louisiana.

Following close behind is Tropical Storm Laura, which forecasters say may intensify to a Category 2 hurricane by the time it makes landfall along the northwestern Gulf Coast.

Residents along the Louisiana coast were urged to prepare for hurricane conditions, and Gov. John Bel Edwards called on them to begin sheltering Sunday evening.

“If you’re in duress and need help, we’re going to get to you as soon as possible,” Edwards said at the state’s Emergency Operations Center, where officials were tracking and preparing for the storms. “But as soon as possible may be longer than it normally is.”

The National Weather Service warned Sunday that the stronger Laura could bring more significant impacts across southern Louisiana because of its potential for higher winds and storm surge and because preparing for Laura will likely be complicated by lingering impacts from Marco.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday declared a state of disaster for 23 counties and requested assistance from the federal government. If Laura were to make landfall in Texas, it could mark the second significant disaster during the 2020 hurricane season for Texas, following Hurricane Hanna dumping more than 15 inches of rain on South Texas in late July as the region was a deadly coronavirus hotspot. The COVID-19 pandemic remains pervasive in Texas, killing at least 200 people every day for the last three weeks, and Abbott reminded the public on Sunday to adhere to mask wearing, social distancing, and other health guidelines.

South Texas cities were the first to deal with a hurricane during the coronavirus pandemic, tweaking shelter practices to have adequate distancing between evacuees and outfitting first responders with protective equipment in order to follow safe coronavirus health guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Residents are strongly encouraged to prepare for these and other storms during this “extremely active” hurricane season – particularly with the additional challenge of COVID-19.

Hurricane preparedness guidance is available from Triple-I here.

Insurance considerations

Wind-caused property damage is covered under standard homeowners, renters, and business insurance policies. Renters’ insurance covers a renter’s possessions while the landlord insures the structure.

Property damage to a home, a renter’s possessions, and a business – resulting from a flood – is generally covered under FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) policies, if the homeowner, renter, or business has purchased one. Several private insurers also offer flood insurance.

Private-passenger vehicles damaged or destroyed by either wind or flooding are covered under the optional comprehensive portion of an auto insurance policy. Nearly 80 percent of U.S. drivers choose to purchase comprehensive coverage.

Legal Environment

Lawyers’ Group Approves Best Practices to Guide Litigation Funding

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The policymaking arm of the American Bar Association (ABA) recently approved a set of best practices for litigation funding arrangements. 

Litigation funding is an increasingly popular technique in which investors finance lawsuits in which they are not a party against companies – often insurers – in return for a share in the settlement. It contributes to “social inflation” – rising litigation costs that affect insurers’ claim payouts, loss ratios, and, ultimately, how much policyholders pay for coverage. 

The resolution – adopted by the ABA’s House of Delegates by a vote of 366 to 10 – lists the issues lawyers should consider before entering into agreements with outside funders. While it avoids taking a position on the use of such funding, it recommends that lawyers detail all arrangements in writing and advises them to ensure that the client retains control. 

 “The litigation should be managed and controlled by the party and the party’s counsel,” the report says. “Limitations on a third-party funder’s involvement in, or direct or indirect control of or input into (or receipt of notice of), either day-to-day or broader litigation management and on all key issues (such as strategy and settlement) should be addressed in the funding agreement.” 

It also cautions attorneys against giving funders advice about the merits of a case, warning that this could raise concerns about the waiver of attorney-client privilege and expose lawyers to claims that they have an obligation to update this guidance as the litigation develops. 

Opponents of litigation funding have pushed for rules requiring mandatory disclosure of funding arrangements during litigation. The resolution doesn’t take a position on whether disclosures to judges or adversaries should be required, but it urges lawyers to be prepared for the possibility of funding arrangements being scrutinized. 

The launch of a new $200 million fund by Pravati Capital this week brings litigation finance firms over the $1 billion mark for funds raised in 2020, according to Bloomberg Law. 

Additional Reading:

SOCIAL INFLATION AND COVID-19

IRC STUDY: SOCIAL INFLATION IS REAL, AND IT HURTS CONSUMERS, BUSINESSES

FLORIDA’S AOB CRISIS: A SOCIAL-INFLATION MICROCOSM

Business Insurance, Business Risk, Emerging Risks

U.K. Business Interruption Litigation Seems Unlikely to Affect U.S. Insurers

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The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), which regulates insurers in the United Kingdom, has indicated that it doesn’t believe COVID-19-related losses trigger most business insurance policies because such policies typically require a direct connection between financial loss and physical damage to the insured property.

Think fire, flood, wind, or earthquake damage.

The FCA is now litigating a test case involving policies of eight insurers that don’t require property damage to trigger coverage (Hear a three-minute explainer from the Centers for Better Insurance).

Is this case relevant to U.S. property/casualty insurers? It depends on whom you ask.

The FCA is looking at 17 policy wordings from the eight insurers and asking whether COVID-19 triggers a payout. Based on other policies the regulator has studied, the Financial Times reports, the court’s ruling are “expected to apply to nearly 50 insurers, who sold coverage to 370,000 customers.”

Senior executives from specialist insurance and reinsurance underwriter Hiscox Group warned that the FCA’s eventual findings could drive additional COVID-19 losses to its reinsurance book, Artemis reports.

Tom Baker – an expert in insurance law and policy at the University of Pennsylvania – called the U.K. case a “one-way ratchet” for U.S. insurers.

“If the carriers lose or end up having a lot of coverage, that’s going to be bad for them here” in the United States,  Baker said. “I think if the carriers win, the insurance policies [in the U.K.] are really different. They tend to be named-peril, rather than all-risks policies. I think it will be easy to distinguish them.”

Jason Schupp, founder and managing member of Centers for Better Insurance, disagrees that an adverse ruling for U.K. insurers will have much of an effect on their U.S. counterparts.  

“In Europe, [FCA] authorization to provide miscellaneous financial loss insurance allows an insurance company to write business interruption insurance that does not require evidence of property damage” to pay a claim, Schupp says. Even though the United Kingdom is no longer part of the European Union, Schupp says, “U.K. law itself recognizes the miscellaneous financial loss class of insurance.”

What does this mean for pandemic business interruption coverage in the United States? Not much, according to Schupp.

“The outcome of the U.K. litigation is unlikely to be relevant to the dozens – or perhaps hundreds – of business interruption lawsuits making their way through U.S. courts, where the property damage question is front and center,” Schupp says.

He goes on to say that proposals coming out of Europe or the U.K. for pandemic insurance going forward – such as a Lloyd’s framework – contemplate non-property-damage business interruption insurance solutions…. These proposals do not appear compatible with the current U.S. insurance regulatory system.”

A ruling by the FCA is expected in mid-September. Last week, the regulatory body said that, while the case doesn’t address how any resulting claims payments would be calculated, “We may intervene and take further actions where firms do not appear to be meeting our expectations and treating their customers fairly.”

Business Insurance, Business Risk, Legal Environment

Business Interruption vs. Event Cancellation: What’s the Big Difference?

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As I’ve written previously, the question of whether business interruption provisions in commercial property insurance apply to COVID-19-related losses has become a major topic of debate during this pandemic. Suits have been filed seeking to establish that policyholders are entitled to coverage for such losses – even when losses associated with infectious disease are specifically excluded in the policy language.

This debate has been muddied in some circles by people confusing business interruption coverage with event cancellation insurance.

Citing the fact that the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had its claim paid when it cancelled its annual men’s basketball tournament, as did the All England Lawn Tennis Association when it canceled its Wimbledon event, some wonder why many other businesses’ claims are being rejected.

While superficially similar, these claims couldn’t be more different from the business interruption cases currently being litigated.

Business Interruption: Physical Damage Required

Property insurance covers physical loss or damage to an insured’s property. The business interruption provisions of commercial property policies typically require a direct relationship between a physical loss or damage and the resulting lost income. The Insurance Services Office (ISO) form for commercial property coverage – the basis of many policies – specifies that any covered loss due to “necessary suspension” of operations must be caused by “direct physical loss of or damage to property at premises which are described in the Declarations.”

This is a critical point, as most business losses related to COVID-19 are due to employees and customers remaining absent, supply chain disruptions, and other factors – not to physical damage.

 “A property policy may, for example, pay to repair the damage caused by a fire and may cover the loss of business during the reconstruction period,” writes Michael Menapace, a professor of insurance law at Quinnipiac University School of Law and a Triple-I Non-Resident Scholar. “But here’s the rub.  Are the business interruptions related to COVID-19 caused by physical damage to property?”

Insurers say no, arguing that “damage to property” requires structural alteration like one would find when, say, a fire destroys the interior of a building or wind damages windows. The virus leaves no visible imprint. Even if remediation is needed – like cleaning mold from metal surfaces – insurers cite cases in which judges have ruled there’s no physical damage from mold if the mold can be cleaned off.

Add to this the fact that most policies exclude coverage for losses related to infectious diseases and it’s hard to imagine U.S. courts finding in favor of the plaintiffs – particularly when pandemic insurance existed well before COVID-19 and was largely ignored by business owners and risk managers.

Event Cancellation Insurance

COVID-19 has led to the cancellation of events from weddings to business conferences to the Tokyo Summer Olympics. Individuals and businesses buy event cancellation insurance against losses resulting from a cancellation due to circumstances beyond their control, including:

  • Weather or other natural events like hurricanes, tornadoes, and earthquakes, and
  • Human-caused events such as labor strikes and acts of terrorism.

If a policy is an “all-cause” or otherwise unlimited policy, it could cover cancellations due to COVID-19, particularly if purchased before 2020.

Wimbledon’s organizers were among the few who bought event cancellation insurance that specifically included coverage for losses related to “communicable disease” after the 2003 SARS outbreak. They paid about £25.5 million (US$33 million) in premiums since then and are set to receive around £114 million (US$142 million) for this year’s cancelled tournament, according to GlobalData.

GlobalData said the event still faces a net loss. The total Wimbledon revenue loss is estimated at around £250 million (US$328 million).

The NCAA had a policy for its “March Madness” tournament that had to be cancelled.  Its event cancellation policy covered just $270 million, even though the tournament generates more than $800 million a year. The organization reportedly was better prepared for a cancellation several years ago, when it built up savings of nearly $500 million to help mitigate the financial impact of a lost tournament.

“Then, in 2015, new leadership decided to spend more than $400 million of those savings without increasing the NCAA’s insurance coverage by following a questionable theory about the risk of saving that much money,” the Washington Post reports, citing former NCAA employees.

The availability of such coverage without exclusions for infectious disease may be limited or even more expensive in the wake of the current pandemic.