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Business Insurance, Business Risk

Is a Global Recession Imminent? If So, Businesses Can Protect Themselves with Credit Risk Insurance

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By Loretta Worters, Vice President – Media Relations

The credit crisis of 2007-2008 was a severe worldwide economic crisis considered by many economists to have been the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, to which it is often compared.  “Everyone was impacted, not just those working in banks.  Because the price of debt, the ability to get financing changed, a lot of things happened.  So, everyone is impacted by credit every day, whether they know it or not,” said Tamika Tyson, senior manager, credit with Noble Energy, in this video interview.

Tyson, who is also a non-resident scholar with the Insurance Information Institute, said what she is most concerned about is debt repayments that are coming due. “If a global recession happens, as economists are predicting, and it happens in conjunction within an election, it can be difficult for companies to refinance any mature debentures they have coming in 2020,” she said.  “Leadership needs to be thinking about the risks in their company.  Not just the credit risks, but all risks related to their business.”

What leads to credit risk and how can companies protect themselves?

The main microeconomic factors that lead to credit risk include limited institutional capacity, inappropriate credit policies, volatile interest rates, poor management, inappropriate laws, low capital and liquidity levels, direct lending, massive licensing of banks, poor loan underwriting, laxity in credit assessment, poor lending practices, government interference and inadequate supervision by the central bank.

Doing a comprehensive risk assessment is a great idea for everyone within an organization, noted Tyson.  “Once an assessment is made as to how much risk they are exposed to, then they can develop a strategy to help protect the company. If there’s more risk in the system than a company is willing to take, then they should consider obtaining credit risk insurance,” she said.

What is Credit Risk Insurance?

Credit risk insurance is a tool to support lending and portfolio management.  It protects a company against the failure of its customers to pay trade credit debts owed to them. These debts can arise following a customer becoming insolvent or failing to pay within the agreed terms and conditions.

What can impact credit risk?

The factors that affect credit risk range from borrower-specific criteria, such as debt ratios, to market-wide considerations such as economic growth. Political upheaval in a country can have an impact, too.

For example, political decisions by governmental leaders about taxes, currency valuation, trade tariffs or barriers, investment, wage levels, labor laws, environmental regulations and development priorities, can affect the business conditions and profitability.

“At the end of the day, political risks have the ability to impact credit risks.  Credit risks rarely impact political risks,” she said.  “We have a lot of different views right now on the political spectrum so until we know how that’s going to work out, it’s going to create risk in the system, and we’ll see how different companies react to that,” Tyson said.

“We all talk about biases.  Everyone thinks they’re better off and it’s always someone else that has the issue.  It’s the same when looking at a risk assessment or reviewing someone’s financials; everyone thinks they’re doing fine, but then they discount what’s going on with other people.  That’s why it is imperative companies self-evaluate as they evaluate those they transact business with.”

“Know your portfolio, know your customers and understand your risk tolerance,” said Tyson.  “Know, too, there are a lot of tools available to help you mitigate against those risks.”

 

Business Insurance

When Must Insurers Defend Motelsin Trafficking Cases?

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Hotels and motels are routinely used for sex trafficking. Two recent lawsuits highlight the complexity of determining who bears legal costs associated with trafficking.

Human trafficking is a crime with enormous individual and societal impacts, and it relies on legitimate businesses to sustain it. Motels, for example – and, arguably, insurers.

“Hotels and motels are routinely used for sex trafficking,” reports the Polaris Project, a nonprofit that aims to “eradicate modern slavery.” Two recent lawsuits involving insurers of motels used by traffickers highlight the complexity of determining who bears legal costs associated with such activities.

Duty to defend

Both cases revolve around “duty to defend” — an insurer’s obligation to provide a legal defense for claims made under a liability policy. Before proceeding, let me say: I’m not a lawyer.  Everything that follows is based on published reporting, and no one should act on anything I write without first consulting an attorney.

In the first case, a woman sued motel operators for letting her be trafficked at their motels when she was a minor. The Insurance and Reinsurance Disputes Blog says, “The allegations of physical harm, threats, being held at gun point, and failure to intervene were wrapped up into claims ranging from negligence per se to intentional infliction of emotional harm.”

One of the motels sought defense from its insurer, Nautilus Insurance Co. Nautilus argued it was not obligated to defend based on a policy exclusion for claims arising out of assault or battery. The court agreed, and an appellate court affirmed.

In other words, the motel owners were on the hook for their own legal costs.

In the second case, a court found the insurer – Peerless Indemnity Insurance Co. – must defend its client in a suit brought by a woman claiming she was imprisoned by a man grooming her for prostitution while the owners turned a blind eye. A lower court had dismissed the case, finding insufficient evidence the motel was engaged in trafficking. An appeals court overturned that decision.

“The relevant question,” the judge said, is whether the victim’s injuries constitute personal injury. This is because the definition of personal injury under the policy included injuries arising from false imprisonment.

Because her injuries, at least in part, arose from false imprisonment, the judge said, “the answer to that question is ‘Yes’.”

So, the court said, Peerless must pay to defend the motel.

Trafficking is a $32 billion-a-year industry. Insurers might want to review their policy language to avoid funding defenses of criminals and businesses that enable them.

Language matters

The differences between these rulings seem to have more to do with nuances in policy language than trafficking facts.

In the Nautilus case, the appeals court found the exclusion – stating Nautilus “will have no duty to defend or indemnify any insured in any action or proceeding alleging damages arising out of any assault or battery” – unambiguous. It declared: “Nautilus had no duty to defend and indemnify” because the claims “arose from facts alleging negligent failure to prevent an assault or battery.”

The Peerless case involved two policies – a general liability and an umbrella – both of which contained exclusions for “‘personal and advertising injury’ arising out of a criminal act committed by or at the direction of the insured.”

The “personal” in “personal and advertising injury” includes false imprisonment.

To a non-lawyer like me, this seems as unambiguous as the Nautilus case: the Peerless policies excluded personal injury “arising out of one or more” of a variety of offenses, including false imprisonment.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts disagrees. Its analysis goes into semantic tall grass, parsing phrases like “arising out of” and “but for” and is peppered with case law citations like:

  • “Ambiguities are to be construed against the insurer and in favor of the insured” and
  • “The insurer bears the burden of demonstrating that an exclusion exists that precludes coverage.”

It would exceed the bounds of my non-existent legal training – and the length of a blog post – to critique the court’s analysis. I recommend reading the decision.

But it doesn’t take a lawyer to see insurers have a stake in reviewing and possibly tightening their policy language to avoid having to fund defenses of criminals and businesses that enable them.

Trafficking is a $32 billion-a-year (and growing) industry, according to the Polaris Project.  With that kind of money involved, cases like these won’t just go away.

Business Risk, Workers Compensation

Workers Comp 2019:Sixth Straight Yearof Underwriting Profits

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Private workers compensation insurers were slightly less profitable in 2019 than their 2018 record, according to a preliminary analysis by the National Council of Compensation Insurance (NCCI). NCCI estimates the combined ratio – a measure of insurer profitability – for 2019 will be about 87 percent, the second-lowest in recent history after last year’s record-low 83.2 percent.

These results, reflecting the segment’s sixth consecutive year of underwriting profitability, are part of NCCI’s State of the Line Report—a comprehensive account of workers’ compensation financial results.

 

Workers’ compensation net premiums written (NPW) fell 3.9 percent in 2019, to $41.6 billion from $43.3 billion in 2018, the report says. Before 2018, cession of premiums to offshore reinsurers stalled NPW growth.  But the Base Erosion Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT) component of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 – which limits multinational corporations’ ability to shift profits from the United States by making tax-deductible payments to affiliates in low-tax countries – spurred NPW growth to almost 9 percent in 2018.

While the BEAT’s residual effect and the strong economy may place upward pressure on 2019 net premiums written, recent decreases in rates and loss costs are likely to more than offset these factors.

Changes in rates/loss costs impact premium growth and reflect several factors that impact system costs, such as changes in the economy, cost containment initiatives, and reforms. NCCI expects premium in 2019 to fall 10 percent, on average, as a result of rate/loss cost filings made in jurisdictions for which NCCI provides ratemaking services.

The State of the Line Report was presented at NCCI’s Annual Issues Symposium (AIS) in May.

Disaster Preparedness, Floods

FEMA Report Recommends New Mechanisms to Ward Against Natural Disasters

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By Max Dorfman, Research Writer

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is being pressed to adopt innovative methods to increase insurance penetration for floods and other natural disasters. In a draft report, FEMA’s National Advisory Council suggests that in order to increase financial preparedness for householders and local governments, novel financial models must be considered. The report notably mentions parametric triggers as a way to grow the insurance markets and protect against future disasters. Blockchain is also recommended as a means to create a land and property registry stored off-site in a secure platform.

What are parametric triggers, and how can they help?

Parametric insurance is a type of insurance that agrees—before the triggering event—to make a certain payment, instead of compensating for the pure loss. Parametric insurance pays out immediately when a certain threshold, such as water depth or wind speed, is reached; thus, expediting funding and reducing overall administrative costs.

What does the future hold for this new model?

“When added to the ubiquitous nature of smartphones and other levels of connectivity, the opportunity for expanding parametric insurance protection to individual households may merely be a matter of connecting the dots, for which FEMA is uniquely placed to lead this effort,” the Council’s report states.

Indeed, the Council believes that FEMA should “look towards a new model of insurance” in an age when natural disasters increasingly threaten both public and private interests.

The draft report also includes many suggestions to improve disaster preparedness, such as better building codes and code compliance, better preparedness for Indian tribes and rural communities, building resilient infrastructure and increasing funding for mitigation.

To close the insurance gap the report recommends:

  • Educating the public about the benefits of flood renter’s insurance and hidden hazards in real estate, rental properties and communities.
  • Stress testing state insurance guaranty funds to determine if they can withstand large-scale disasters and insurer insolvencies.
  • Creating more offerings for state and local governments to reduce rates of self-insurance of infrastructure.

 

Cyber Risk, Health & Safety

Life & Death: Cyberattacks Interrupt More Than Business

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Cyberattacks on hospitals can lead to increased death rates among heart patients, recent research suggests. This research emerges as attacks on health facilities are reported to have increased 60 percent in 2019.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University‘s Owen Graduate School of Management drilled down into Department of Health and Human Services records on data breaches from more than 3,000 Medicare-certified hospitals. They found that, for facilities that experienced a breach, the time for suspected heart attack patients to receive an electrocardiogram (ECG) increased by more than two minutes.

Health care is the seventh-most targeted industry, but attacks on this sector are on the rise.

When seconds count

The study focused on the impact of remediation efforts on health care outcomes following a data breach.  It found that common remediation approaches, such as additional verification layers during system sign-on, can “delay the access to patient data and may lead to inefficiencies or delays in care.”

Common remediation approaches, such as additional verification during system sign-on, can delay access to patient data and lead to delays in care.

“Especially in the case of a patient with chest pain,” the report says, “any delay in registering the patient and accessing the patient’s record will lead to delay in ordering and executing an ECG.”

The researchers found that “a data breach was associated with a 2.7-minute increase in time to ECG three years after the breach.”

A bit over two minutes may not seem like much – but during a coronary or a stroke it can be the difference between life and death.

Increasingly targeted

Vanderbilt’s research was based on data collected before ransomware attacks against health care facilities became common. The authors caution that such attacks – in which systems or data are held hostage until a ransom can be paid – “are considered more disruptive to hospital operations than the breaches considered in this study.”

The medical sector is the seventh-most targeted industry, according to a report by internet security firm Malwarebytes, based on data gathered between October 2018 and September 2019. But Malwarebytes warns that attacks on this sector are on the rise.

“Threat detections have increased for this vertical,” the report says, “from about 14,000 healthcare-facing endpoint detections in Q2 2019 to more than 20,000 in Q3, a growth rate of 45 percent.”

Comparing all of 2018 against the first three quarters of 2019, Malwarebytes said it has observed a 60 percent increase in such attempted intrusions.

“If the trend continues,” Malwarebytes reports, “we expect to see even higher gains in a full year-over-year analysis.”

 

Insurance Industry

Advisen Event Panelists Proclaim Hard Market in Property Insurance

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In a hard market, demand for coverage is strong, supply weak. Insurers impose strict underwriting standards, and buyers pay higher premiums.

For those still tiptoeing around whether the property insurance market is yet officially “hard,” two speakers at Advisen’s Property Insights Conference last week unabashedly used the “H-word,” and none of the 300-plus insurance and risk-management professionals attending seemed to disagree.

Gary Marchitello, head of property broking for Willis Towers Watson, was first to say it in an on-stage conversation with Michael Andler, executive vice president/U.S. property practice leader at Lockton Cos.

Andler concurred: “If it walks like a hard market and talks like a hard market, it’s a hard market.”

Some presenters during the daylong event quibbled over when pricing went from merely “hardening” to “hard”.  Some said the hard market is eight quarters old, while others said it began as recently as the second quarter of 2019 – but no one piped up to deny it’s here.

Hard, soft, and why it matters

In a hard market, demand for coverage is strong, supply weak. Insurers impose strict underwriting standards and issue fewer policies. Consequently, buyers pay higher premiums. During soft markets, customers can negotiate lower prices as insurers compete for business. When the market hardens again, prices rise as insurers adjust rates at renewal.

Marchitello, with four decades’ experience, said this hard market is different: “With prices rising, you’d expect new entrants to the market. That is absolutely not happening.”

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he added. “Two years of combined ratios above 100 have forced underwriters to drive profitability” rather than pursue market share, as many did during the soft market.

 We brought it on ourselves

In a room packed with insurers, brokers, and buyers, one might expect some finger pointing for the dramatic price increases. I heard little to none.

“We as underwriters allowed it to happen,” said Erik Nikodem, senior vice president at Everest Insurance.

“We lost the script during the soft market,” said Michal Nardiello, senior vice president at CNA. “We pushed deals that weren’t sustainable in the long haul.”

And it wasn’t only underwriters accepting responsibility.

“I never turned down a lower rate” when the market was soft, said Lori Seidenberg, global director of real assets insurance for BlackRock. Not that she should have – but professional risk managers know a soft market isn’t going to last forever and need to plan accordingly.

Despite this admirable accountability, it’s important to remember larger forces have been at work. As CNA’s Nardiello put it: “There’s been a massive shift of wealth and people into areas prone to fire, tornados, hail, and flood” – perils that are themselves changing in frequency and intensity.

Also a factor is “social inflation” – rising litigation costs that drive up insurers’ claim payouts, loss ratios, and, ultimately, policyholder premiums. It’s been estimated that social inflation “could ultimately blow a $200 billion hole in global reserves.”

 What’s next?

 Carriers, customers, and brokers all acknowledged the need to do things differently. While much was said about using technology, data, and analytics to improve underwriting and reduce expenses, the dominant theme was communication. All parties recognized they must communicate early and often.

As Duncan Ellis, head of retail property, North America for AIG, put it: “Bad news doesn’t get better with time.”

“It’s important for brokers to get a handle on the data,” said Theresa Purcell, director of risk management for real estate giant Kushner. She also recommended that brokers “get creative. Suggest different structures. Educate us about other services” that might better suit individual customer needs.

Stephanie Hyde, executive director at P-E Risk, an insurance and risk management consultancy, echoed Purcell, adding that brokers need to “educate yourselves about all lines of coverage your clients need so you can understand what they’re going through.”

Maria Grace, vice president and chief underwriting officer for property and inland marine at Everest, urged brokers to “put us [underwriters] in front of your clients” to help them understand why prices are increasing and, where possible, offer more appropriate solutions.

 

Insurance Industry

From the I.I.I. Daily: Our most popular content, November 14 to November 21

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Here are the 5 most clicked on articles from this week’s Triple-I Daily newsletter.

To subscribe to the Triple-I Daily email daily@iii.org.

Terrorism Risk

Terrorism risk insurance program renewal advances in Senate

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A bill to reauthorize the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) of 2002 was passed on November 20 by the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs. The unanimous decision was made only a day after the U.S. House of Representatives voted to renew the federally backed terrorism insurance coverage backstop program, which is set to expire in December 2020.

The bill includes a provision to study cyber terrorism and the availability and affordability of coverage, specifically for places of worship.

“The bill being considered today would not only avoid significant uncertainty in the marketplace, but it also preserves the taxpayer reforms included in the last reauthorization,” said Senate Banking Committee chairman  Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) in a statement.

The 2015 reauthorization “required the private insurance industry to absorb and cover the losses for all but the largest acts of terror”, Sen. Crapo said. This included requiring total insurance industry insured losses for certified acts of terror to exceed $200 million before federal assistance would become available and increasing the industry’s aggregate retention amount to $37.5 billion.

The decision was met with resounding approval from insurance industry representatives and other stakeholders.

The next steps are for the Senate Banking Committee version to be approved by the full Senate,  any differences between the two measures (which are said to be virtually identical) to be reconciled, and the final bill to be signed into law by President Trump.

Jimi Grande, senior vice president of government affairs at the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC) said, “With passage of TRIA reauthorization legislation out of the House on Monday, today’s unanimous passage of an identical bill out of the Senate Banking Committee demonstrates that there is little daylight between the two chambers or between the two sides of the aisle. There is no reason Congress shouldn’t be able to get a bill to the president’s desk by the end of the year.”

To get an idea of what could happen without a government terrorism backstop we’ve been searching our database for news items that appeared in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, before the federal program was in place. Below is an abstract citing a Wall Street Journal article about the impact on workers’ compensation. This line would be one of the most affected by a lack of a backstop because, unlike other insurance lines, workers’ compensation insurers have no choice but to include terrorism coverage in their policies.

Insurance Industry

2019 Hurricane Season: “Slightly Above Average”

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Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science released a summary of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season today.

Seven of the named storms lasted 24 hours or less – the most on record with such short longevity.

The 2019 season yielded 18 named storms, six of which became hurricanes, including three major ones (Category 3 or higher, with maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph). While 18 is quite a bit more than the seasonal average of 12 , seven of the named storms lasted 24 hours or less – the most on record with such short longevity.

“The season ended up slightly above average when looking at integrated metrics, such as accumulated cyclone energy, that account for frequency, intensity and duration of storms,” said Dr. Phil Klotzbach, research scientist in the Department of Atmospheric Science, non-resident scholar at the Insurance Information Institute (I.I.I.), and lead author of the report. “We generally forecast a near-average season, so we slightly under-predicted overall levels of Atlantic hurricane activity.”

Dorian: most destructive

Of the three major hurricanes, Dorian was the most destructive. Forming in late August, it devastated the northwestern Bahamas at Category 5 intensity, causing over 60 fatalities and economic losses that could be as much as $7 billion, according to a recent Artemis report. It then made landfall near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, as a Category 1 hurricane and later caused significant damage in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada. Insurance broker Aon estimates the economic value of the damage Dorian inflicted on the United States at approximately $1.2 billion.

Hurricane Humberto, forming in September, caused much less damage than Dorian, as it remained hundreds of miles offshore. Nevertheless, it caused large swells across the U.S. East Coast and resulted in one fatality when a man drowned due to a rip current in North Carolina. Another man was reported missing in St. Augustine, Florida after the storm. Bermuda officials reported that no fatalities occurred on the island during Humberto’s passage.

Hurricane Lorenzo became a Category 5 hurricane in the central subtropical Atlantic – the farthest east Cat 5 Atlantic formation on record. It generated 49-foot waves, with an occasional rogue wave nearing 100 feet, sending swells to both sides of the Atlantic. Lorenzo caused 10 fatalities.

She nearly didn’t get a name

The most destructive storm to hit the continental United States in the 2019 season almost didn’t have a name. Two hours before dumping 40 inches of rain in some parts of Texas, Tropical Storm Imelda was just “a tropical depression,” Dr. Klotzbach said. Imelda was upgraded to a named storm 90 minutes before landfall, but it proceeded to deluge southeast Texas, causing at least $2 billion in economic damage and at least five deaths, according to Aon.

“From a wind perspective, Imelda was practically a non-event,” Dr. Klotzbach continued. “But the rain it brought made it the most expensive tropical cyclone to hit the United States during the 2019 season.”

The 2019 Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and ends officially on November 30. Colorado State’s full summary and verification report is available here.

 

Workers Compensation

Opioids and Workers’ Compensation

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By Max Dorfman, Research Writer, Insurance Information Institute

As the opioid epidemic continues to roil the country, it’s easy to forget the number of issues that contribute to its severity. Indeed, for workers injured on the job, compensation can include opioid treatments—which can lead to opioid dependence. With this subject in mind, I spoke to Dr. Vennela Thumula, an author and policy analyst with the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI), who was able to provide insight into opioid dispensing for injured workers.

This interview was modified for clarity.

What are you seeing as far as general trends in prescribing opioids for workers injured on the job, particularly as the opioid epidemic has become a more visible issue?

Our study – Interstate Variations in Dispensing of Opioids, 5th Edition – examined recent trends in opioids dispensed under workers compensation for workers from 27 states who had more than seven days of work loss due to their injury but who did not have a major surgical procedure related to the work injury.

Opioid dispensing to injured workers has decreased substantially in recent years in all 27 state workers’ compensation systems studied. Between 2012 and 2016 injuries followed for an average two years postinjury, the percentage of injured workers with prescriptions receiving opioids decreased by 8 percentage points (in Illinois) to 25 percentage points (in California). Among injured workers receiving opioids, the average morphine milligram equivalent (MME) amount of opioids dispensed per worker in the first two years of a claim decreased in nearly all study states, with 30 percent or higher reductions seen in 20 of the 27 states studied.

Which states are you still seeing higher-than-average prescribing rates for workers injured on the job? Why do you think these states are still seeing such high rates?

After the declines, opioid dispensing continues to be prevalent in some states. At the end of the study period, the percentage of injured workers with prescriptions receiving opioids ranged from 32 percent in New Jersey to 70 percent in Arkansas and Louisiana across the 27 states, and the average MME per worker in Delaware, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and New York continued to be the highest among the 27 study states.

For instance, in Delaware and Louisiana, the average MME per claim was more than three times the amount in the median (middle) state and over five times that in the state with the lowest amount, Missouri. We should note that although New York is among states with the higher-than-typical amount of opioids, there were substantial decreases in opioids dispensed to New York workers over the study period. We should also caution that these four states have implemented other opioid reforms towards the end or after the study period whose impact could be monitored with more recent data.

I see non-pharmacologic treatments are being used more often for workers injured on the job. What are the most common non-pharmacologic treatments utilized under workers’ compensation?

We see that providers have switched from multi-pronged pain treatments, which involve pain medications (including opioids) and other restorative therapies, to a treatment protocol that more frequently relies solely on non-pharmacologic services. The most frequent non-pharmacologic services billed and paid under workers compensation were physical medicine evaluation; active and passive physical medicine services such as electrical stimulation and hot and cold therapies; and passive manipulations such as manual therapy and massage.

How are these non-opioid pain treatments changing the landscape of workers’ compensation for patients and insurance companies? Are these treatments now prioritized over opioids?

Our first look at the data suggests a shift in treatment patterns away from opioids to non-pharmacologic services, which conforms to the recommendations of opioid prescribing and pain treatment guidelines and policies implemented in a number of states. Many questions remain answered, including the impact of these changing treatment patterns on claim outcomes. We will be talking more about alternatives to opioids for pain management at WCRI’s 36 Annual Issues & Research Conference, March 5 and 6, 2020, in Boston, MA.

 

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