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Insurance Industry

The Insurance Information Institute and The Institutes Announce Plan to Affiliate

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The Two Organizations to Unify Their Voices and Modernize Their Capabilities

The Insurance Information Institute’s (Triple-I) Board of Directors approved plans this month to have the Triple-I enter into an affiliation with The Institutes, and The Institutes’ Board agreed to the affiliation June 24. The terms will be finalized next month.

Peter Miller

“With 60 years of quality work serving as the trusted voice of objective insurance information, the Insurance Information Institute’s brand is invaluable to us. Combining their assets with ours will allow both organizations to turn the page on the next chapter of their operations and sets both of us up for continued long-term success,” said Peter Miller, CPCU, president and CEO of The Institutes, a global provider of risk management and insurance education and research. “Together, we will be better empowered to serve those interested in risk management and insurance.”

Sean Kevelighan

“This forward-looking decision is the culmination of several years of strategic dialogue both internally at the Triple-I and with The Institutes. Taking this next step will further unify our collective efforts when it is needed most, grant both the Triple-I and The Institutes greater access to a deeper bench of resources and expertise, and improve value for Triple-I’s member companies across the country,” said Sean Kevelighan, CEO, Triple-I, a trusted source of unique, data-driven insights on insurance.

The affiliation, which will bring the Triple-I brand into the Malvern, Pennsylvania-based The Institutes structure, reflects the changing landscape of the broader industry and the economy. Moreover, it will unify two trusted data-driven organizations and continues The Institutes’ strategy in recent years to leverage the synergies of like-minded organizations.

For Triple-I, this evolution is the next step in the organization’s pursuit of a modern, transparent, and team-oriented structure that reflects the diversity and breadth of their membership.

Additional details will be announced publicly as the deal is finalized in July.

Auto Insurance, Disaster Preparedness, Homeowners Insurance

National Insurance Awareness Day

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June 28 is National Insurance Awareness Day, which means it’s a good day to evaluate your insurance coverage and assess your risk.

Triple-I has put together a video to help remind you to review your policies and consider any life changes that might necessitate updating your coverage.

This is also a good time to consider your catastrophe risk. Hurricane season started on June 1st – do you know the storm risk in your area? Do you need supplemental flood or wind insurance? Remember: anywhere that it can rain, it can flood.

Business Risk, Disaster Resilience

Safeguard your business from wildfires: Allianz and Triple-I team up on mitigation

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With business owners facing the ‘new normal’ of a seven-month wildfire season, compounded by rising temperatures, public safety power shutoffs, COVID-19 and civil unrest – wildfire preparation will be more critical than ever this year.

As outlined in a new Allianz report “Future Fires: Weathering the Fire Storm”, 2019 was a catastrophic year with 46,786 wildfires burning more than 4.6 million acres, leading to the evacuation of over 200,000 people, sustained blackouts, and the declaration of a state of emergency in California. And this year wildfires are already blazing across drought-ridden Western states while the risk of coronavirus has reduced the number of firefighters available in California and is likely to remain well into the fall.  

To meet the myriad of challenges, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS) has teamed up with the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) to provide businesses with some of the most stringent risk mitigation practices for safeguarding their establishments.

According to Allianz and the Triple-I, business owners should take the following steps to safeguard employees and property from wildfire:

1. Create defensible space around your building or structures

2. Create a Vegetation Maintenance Plan (VMP) to reduce sources of ignition

3. Use noncombustible materials for building signage, avoiding wood, plastic, and vinyl

4. Select exterior wall cladding made of noncombustible siding materials such as concrete and brick

5. Select dual-paned windows with tempered glass, kept closed when wildfire threatens

6. Use noncombustible material when replacing roofs. Homes with wood or shingle roofs are at high risk of being destroyed during a wildfire

7. Inspect vents and clear debris from roofs. Roofs and gutters are particularly vulnerable surfaces, as embers can lodge here and start a fire. Regularly clearing your roof and gutters of debris, installing gutter guards or screens, and blocking off any points of entry on your roof will all help safeguard your home 

Finally, don’t forget to update your inventory, business continuity, evacuation, and safety plans.

Business owners should further discuss with their insurance professionals the risks their business’s face as it pertains to wildfire and the need for:

  • Property Insurance (including the differences between replacement vs. cash value)
  • Business Interruption (also known as business income) and extra expense insurance 
  • Mitigation solutions and fire protection services available
  • Precautionary measures that can be taken today to prevent loss tomorrow

“Preparedness is as vital to an organization as business resilience planning,” said Janet Ruiz, Director of Strategic Communications for the Insurance Information Institute. “We recommend business owners review their insurance coverage to ensure they can adequately rebuild their properties as well as protect their business against major disruptions such as wildfire.” 

“Future Fires” highlights how a number of innovative technologies are stepping up to meet the challenge of the prevalence of wildfires and the prolonged duration of the wildfire season. One application of fire protection that is currently in use is an environmentally safe biodegradable fire-fighting foam used for pretreatment and suppression around property and building perimeters. When fire is imminent, foam is applied from private fire trucks appointed with state-of-the-art equipment.

The report also cites a Silicon Valley artificial intelligence company that has developed a system that analyzes satellite images every 10 minutes to identify where new wildfires may have broken out. This technology is trained to spot the likely signs of wildfires, and then alert firefighting agencies, who can verify if indeed a fire has broken out. The company hopes to have the system in place by next year’s wildfire season.

“Allianz is committed to helping businesses mitigate extreme catastrophes like wildfires with the most advanced techniques and solutions available,” says Scott H. Steinmetz, P.E., Regional Head of MidCorp at Allianz Risk Consulting. “The 2020 fire season presents unique challenges and complexities that will inherently put our skills to their utmost test. I feel confident, however, that businesses can greatly minimize their losses with advance planning and close communication with their insurance carrier before, and in the unfortunate event that it occurs, during and after a wildfire.”

Business Insurance, Insurance Industry

Pandemic Insurance Was Available. Why Didn’t Businesses Purchase It?

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By James Ballot, Senior Advisor, Strategic Communications, Triple-I

Business interruption policies generally exclude losses from closures due to virus or bacteria. Yet insurance against losses due to a pandemic like COVID-19 did in fact exist well before the first case of COVID-19 was reported in the U.S. A recent Wired article, We Can Protect the Economy From Pandemics. Why Didn’t We? gives an in-depth look at the origins and development of pandemic insurance–and why it was ignored by business owners and risk managers who potentially stood to gain the most (or lose the least) from having it.

On the surface, the article’s author recounts the sort of innovation and ingenuity that most of us familiar with insurance can easily recognize. But just beneath is a fascinating glimpse at how insurers, virologists and epidemiologists, and data scientists devised ways to understand and rationalize the economics of outbreaks—and at the amazing race to quantify and price pandemic risks to bring an insurance product to market.

“Reinsurance is sometimes called the business of a hundred professions … you don’t just have mathematicians and lawyers and businessmen. You have former mining engineers. You have former captains who steered ships across the ocean. You have art experts who are specialized in art insurance. It is, if you like, always close to life.”

–from, We Can Protect the Economy From Pandemics. Why Didn’t We?

Like many significant advances, pandemic insurance started from a conventional, even humble proposition. In 2011, with the 2008 Ebola outbreak still fresh in the collective memory, Gunther Kraut, then a young quantitative analyst at Munich Re, studied ways for his firm to hedge its life insurance portfolio against a “one-in-500-year return period.”

Kraut later partnered with Nathan Wolfe, a globetrotting rock-star virologist, and Nita Madhav, an epidemiologist who’d spent 10 years modeling catastrophes for the insurance industry, to create what was essentially a new consciousness about pandemic risk—and tools to help mitigate potentially immense losses.

Without trifling, this is a gripping saga involving global NGOs, multinational corporate giants, visionary business derring-do, and catastrophic failures of the imagination. But from its pages, we get a fuller understanding of insurance as a pervasive force that, in spite of its sophistication, ubiquity and capacity for good, nevertheless sometimes bows to the principles of behavioral economics.  

Homeowners Insurance

Lightning-related homeowners insurance claims down, costs up

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The number of lightning-caused U.S. homeowners insurance claims has decreased over the past few years, yet the average cost per claim has increased, according to Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) findings.

“It’s not surprising that lightning-related homeowners insurance claims costs have risen,” said James Lynch, chief actuary and senior vice president of Research and Education at the Triple-I. “Homes are more susceptible to lightning damage because electronic systems have become more interconnected – think Smart Homes – which have an easy gateway to much of a home’s electronic network, damaging scores of devices and appliances at once.”

Triple-I found that:

  • More than $920 million in lightning claims were paid out in 2019, up from $909 million in 2018
  • There were 76,860 lightning claims in 2019 down from 77,898 in 2018
  • The cumulative value of claims caused by lightning rose 1.2 percent between 2018 and 2019 and 0.4 percent from 2017-2019
  • The average cost that insurers paid on lightning-related claims increased by 11 percent between 2017 and 2019, and by 2.6 percent from 2018 to 2019.

Florida – the state with the most thunderstorms— was the top state for lightning claims in 2019, with 6,821, followed by Texas (5,780) and California (5,100).  Of the states with largest number of claims, Texas had the highest average cost per claim at $15,278.

Homeowners Insurance Coverage

Damage caused by lightning, such as a fire, is covered under standard homeowners insurance policies.  Some policies provide coverage for power surges that are the direct result of a lightning strike, which can cause severe damage to appliances, electronics, computers and equipment, phone systems, electrical fixtures and the electrical foundation of a home.

In recognition of Lightning Safety Awareness Week, June 21-27, the Triple-I and the Lightning Protection Institute (LPI), a national organization that promotes lightning protection education, awareness and safety, encourage homeowners to install a lightning protection system in their home. 

“When it comes to lightning, safety and liability are two important factors,” said Tim Harger, executive director of LPI. “The safest place in any lightning event is within a structure protected by a properly designed, inspected and certified lightning protection system. Lightning protection systems protect the electronic infrastructure, core and knock-on functions of properties and can significantly reduce the more than $900 million of insured claims.”

To locate an LPI-certified lightning protection system installer in your area, click here.

U.S. lightning fatalities have also been declining, due partly to increased awareness of lightning danger.

To learn more about lightning safety click here.

Disaster Resilience, Technology, Webinars

Triple-I, ResilientH20 Partners Launch Resilience Innovation Hub

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The Gulf Coast & Southwest Resilience Innovation Hub’s creation was announced on June 18 by the Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) and ResilientH20 Partners and will be a key part of the Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator initiative.

The Resilience Innovation Hub will allow private and public sector entities to collaborate and bring-to-market resilience and flood mitigation technologies. Moreover, the Hub will connect investors with governments and academic institutions while also highlighting pre-disaster mitigation success stories through a resilience portfolio and technology showcase program. 

The Innovation Hub is opening effective June 18 at the Cannon’s downtown Houston Cannon Tower, a venue which already houses workspaces where entrepreneurs gather as their ventures develop. The locale, also the headquarters for ResilientH20 Partners, is at 1801 Main Street, Suite 1300, Houston, Texas 77002. The Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator initiative is aimed at reducing the impact of extreme weather events and building more resilient communities through insurance.

“As households and businesses learn from past natural disasters, especially those which struck the U.S.’s Gulf Coast, the Resilience Innovation Hub can accelerate the deployment of products, services, and projects aimed at reducing disaster-caused losses in consultation with insurance carriers and brokers,” said Dr. Michel Léonard, CBE, Vice President, Senior Economist, Triple-I and the Triple-I’s Resilience Accelerator lead.

“There has been a widespread interest in, and demand for, best-in-class actionable, alternative disaster mitigation solutions since 2017’s Hurricane Harvey and subsequent storms caused extensive insured losses to autos, homes, businesses, and governmental properties,” said Richard Seline, Managing Partner, ResilientH2O Partners. “Society saves six dollars for every dollar spent through mitigation grants funded through federal agencies and even more progress can be made on this front through further investment in pre-disaster risk mitigation.”

Nine of the 10 costliest hurricanes in U.S. history have occurred since 2004, as defined by private-sector insured losses paid to auto, home, and business insurance policyholders and FEMA National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payouts.

“The Cannon Tower will provide a seamless onboarding for the Resilience Innovation Hub’s activities. Houston is already home to networks which focus on issues like sustainability, green infrastructure, and smart cities,” said Remington Tonar, Chief Revenue Officer, The Cannon Startup Platform.

The Resilience Innovation Hub’s creation was announced at the second in a series of virtual Town Halls co-hosted by the Triple-I and ResilientH2O Partners. The session on “Technology, Innovation, and Investment” focused on investing in pre-disaster risk mitigation and featured presentations by:

A panel discussion followed, and it included the Cannon’s Remington Tonar; Aaron Chan, Scouting Manager at State Farm’s @Labs; and Edward Craner, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Marketing at Holt Caterpillar.

Insurers and the Economy

P&C COVID-19 Wrap-upThe Path to Reopening

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Just as it has played a key role in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the insurance industry will be integral to the economic recovery as businesses and communities reopen. 

Aon forms recovery coalition 

Re/insurance broker Aon has formed a coalition of companies and organizations to focus on aiding social and economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reinsurance News reports. 

Starting in Chicago, the coalition will create a model and framework to inform criteria and guidelines to help restart the economy worldwide, with the aim of scaling the work to other key geographies, including London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo. The coalition will work closely with Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker’s and Mayor Lightfoot’s offices to ensure alignment with public health and city/state official recommendations. 

The broker believes this will help to assess impact and measurement of efforts, evaluate the latest technologies, and develop guidelines to help navigate the challenges businesses face as society reopens. 

“We have used our expertise to assist clients in maintaining operations and mitigating risk during the pandemic—and believe we have a responsibility to play a larger role in helping the private and public sector navigate the recovery,” said Aon CEO Greg Case. 

Initial coalition members include: Abbott, Accenture, Allstate, Beam Suntory, BMO Harris, CDW, CNA, ComEd, ConAgra, Exelon, Fortuna Brands, Hyatt, JLL, McDonald’s, Mondelez, Morningstar, Motorola Solutions, Sterling Bay, Ulta Beauty, United Airlines, Walgreens, Whirlpool, and Zurich. 

S&P panelists wary of post-COVID-19 headwinds 

A panel of property and casualty insurers at the S&P Global Ratings’ Annual Insurance Conference  raised concerns about the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Reinsurance News reports. 

S&P analysts currently believe COVID-19 related losses will total between $15 billion and $30 billion for the U.S. P&C market alone over the next two years. 

The panelists agreed that coverage for pandemic-induced business interruptions and losses will be a complicated issue for the industry to face, even though viruses are generally not a covered peril for commercial properties. 

“I never envisioned managing through a global pandemic,” said Christopher Swift of The Hartford.  

“Clearly the challenge is how you are operating both internally and externally,” said W. Robert Berkley, Jr., of WR Berkley. “It calls for flexibility, but also for the ability to plan amid uncertainty.” 

Panelists said workers’ compensation claims due to COVID-19 illnesses could be an inflection point, though, as states scrutinize policies given the rising number of these claims. If coverage is expanded, insurers will need to evaluate this risk and price accordingly. 

Moderator Kevin Ahern, managing director and analytical manager, S&P Global Ratings, noted that the U.S. P&C market faces many headwinds, not just those related to COVID-19. These include competitive pressures, the pricing/underwriting/reinsurance environment, and evolving regulatory and legislative developments. 

Iowa Legislature approves COVID-19 liability shield 

Legislation headed to Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds’ desk would provide liability limitations on potential COVID-19 lawsuits for a broad range of businesses and organizations — among them restaurants, retail establishments, meatpacking plants, churches, medical providers and senior care facilities — provided they followed public health guidance, Business Record reported. 
 
Senate File 2338, the COVID-19 Response and Back-to-Business Limited Liability Act, would prohibit individuals from filing a civil lawsuit against a business or health care organization unless it relates to a minimum medical condition (a diagnosis of COVID-19 that requires in-patient hospitalization or results in death) or involves an act that was intended to cause harm or that constitutes actual malice. 
 
The legislation would protect tenants, lessees and occupants of any premises — including any commercial, residential, educational, religious, governmental, cultural, charitable or health care facility — in which a person is invited in and is exposed to COVID-19.   

However, liability would extend to anyone who “recklessly disregards a substantial and unnecessary risk that the individual would be exposed to COVID-19,” or exposes the individual to COVID-19 through an act that constitutes actual malice or intentionally exposes the individual to COVID-19. 

The provisions, which would be retroactive to Jan. 1, also shield health care providers from liability for civil damages “for causing or contributing, directly or indirectly, to the death or injury of an individual as a result of the health care provider’s acts or omissions while providing or arranging health care in support of the state’s response to COVID-19.” 

Ill. workers comp measure becomes law 

Legislation signed into law in Illinois will provide worker compensation benefits for front-line and essential workers who contract COVID-19 on the job under certain conditions, Business Insurance reports. 

Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed H.B. 2455, which will provide death benefits for first responders who were presumably infected with COVID-19 on duty and also revises state code to expand unemployment benefits and enhance sick pay and leave for workers who contract the virus. 

Under the law, employers can rebut claims under certain conditions, including if they can demonstrate the workplace was following current public health guidelines for two weeks before the employee claims to have contracted the virus; provide proof the employee was exposed by another source outside the workplace; or that the employee was working from home for at least 14 days before the claimed injury. 

The law also says first responders, including police officers and firefighter who die after testing positive for COVID-19 or its antibodies, are entitled to death benefits. However, the virus must have been determined to have been contracted between March 9 — the first day of Illinois’ governor-mandated stay-at-home order — and Dec. 31, 2020. Under the law, the date of contraction is either the date of diagnosis with COVID-19 or the date the first responder was unable to work due to symptoms that were later diagnosed as related to COVID-19 infection, whichever occurred first. 

Disaster Preparedness, Disaster Resilience

Modern Building Codes Would Prevent Billions In Catastrophe Losses

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A new study by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) could be instrumental to its effort to persuade states and localities to adopt up-to-date building codes. 

The study, titled Building Codes Save: A Nationwide Study of Loss Prevention, quantifies the physical and economic losses associated with flooding, hurricanes, and earthquakes that have been avoided due to buildings being constructed according to modern, hazard-resistant building codes and standards.  

In California and Florida – two of the most catastrophe-prone U.S. states – the study found that “adopting and enforcing modern hazard-resistant building codes over the past 20 years indicate a long-term average future savings of $1 billion per year for those two states combined.” 

“The combined savings from these two states demonstrate the high value of adopting I-Codes for hazard mitigation as a return on investment,” FEMA wrote, referring to model construction codes published by the International Code Council. 

“This gives us the foundation to back up the recommendations that we’re making,” FEMA building engineer Jonathan Westcott said at a recent conference on flood prevention. 

The study is part of FEMA’s broader effort to reduce the growing cost of natural disasters by convincing states and municipalities to adopt post-2000 building codes. Two-thirds of the nation’s localities haven’t adopted recent model codes, Westcott said. 

Communities often don’t understand the long-term benefits of adopting stronger codes. 

“Instead of just hearing about how expensive it is to add a foot of freeboard,” Wescott said, “they’re going to understand the financial benefits of doing that so they can make a balanced decision on what’s best for their community.” 

Cyber Risk, Legal Environment, Regulation

Senate Panel Meets On COVID-19 Fraud

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The Senate Judiciary Committee last week held a  hearing  titled “COVID-19 Fraud: Law Enforcement’s Response to Those Exploiting the Pandemic.”   

The hearing included testimony by William Hughes, associate deputy attorney general, U.S. Department of Justice; Craig Carpenito, U.S. attorney, District of New Jersey; Calvin Shivers, assistant director, Criminal Investigative Division, Federal Bureau of Investigation; and Michael D’Ambrosio, assistant director, U.S. Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security. 

Testimony focused on the response to fraud that has resulted from the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples included sale of fraudulent personal protective equipment (PPE) and cyber-enabled fraud; price gouging and hoarding; and fraud relating to the CARES Act’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). 

As demand for PPE has been greater than the supply, the environment created has been “ripe for exploitation,” Shivers said.  

In addition to sales of counterfeit PPE, he cited “advance fee” schemes – in which a victim prepays for goods like ventilators, masks, or sanitizer that are never received – and business email compromise (BEC) schemes, which involve spoofing an email address or using one that’s nearly identical to one  trusted by the victim to instruct them to direct funds to bank accounts controlled by the fraudsters. 

Shivers said the FBI is working to educate “the health care industry, financial institutions, other private sector partners, and the American public of an increased potential for fraudulent activity dealing with the purchase of COVID-19-related medical equipment.”  

He added that millions of units of PPE have been recovered from price-gouging and hoarding operations and the FBI is working to determine next steps for how to redistribute or sell the PPE. 

D’Ambrosio said that although “criminals throughout history have exploited emergencies for illicit gain, the fraud associated with the current COVID-19 pandemic presents a scale and scope of risks we have not seen before.” 

He described four categories of threat: 

  1. COVID-19-related scams, including the sale of fraudulent medical equipment and nondelivery scams;  
  1. Cybercrime like BECs, exploiting increased telework; 
  1. Ransomware and other activities that could disrupt pandemic response; and 
  1. Defrauding government and financial institutions associated with response and recovery efforts. 

Thus far, the Secret Service has initiated over 100 criminal investigations, prevented approximately $1 billion in fraud losses, and disrupted hundreds of online COVID-19-related scams, D’Ambrosio said. 

Corporate Social Responsibility, Insurance Industry

Insurers respond to COVID-19 (6/15/2020)

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Industrywide, philanthropic giving in response to the COVID-19 crisis continues to increase. Using information collected by Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF), the Insurance Information Institute upgraded its earlier estimate to $280 million donated through early June by U.S. insurers and their charitable foundations in response to the pandemic. In addition, international insurers and their foundations have donated more than $150 million.

On June 15 the IICF announced a $500,000 contribution from Lloyd’s to its Children’s Relief Fund. This donation will help deliver tens of thousands of meals to vulnerable children struggling with food insecurity and help to address educational disruption, family homelessness and other risks exacerbated by the pandemic. This gift from Lloyd’s brings the IICF’s Children’s Relief pandemic campaign total to $1.1 million raised to date.

 “As the industry’s leading charitable giving platform and convenor of brokers, insurers and service providers, the IICF’s value proposition rings more clearly now than ever,” said Hank Watkins, Regional Director and President, Americas at Lloyd’s, and former Chair of the IICF Northeast Division Board of Directors. “Lloyd’s is proud to join hands with our industry colleagues in supporting the IICF’s mission and efforts to meet the needs of those in our communities left vulnerable by the pandemic crisis.”

IICF reports seeing widespread and united industry support for its crisis relief campaign, including nearly 600 individual contributors. IICF anticipates providing one million meals throughout this campaign to children and their families in need.

To learn more about the IICF Children’s Relief Fund or donate, please visit here.

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