Electronic cigarettes have been marketed as a healthier alternative to smoking tobacco, but a recent outbreak of lung disease linked to e-cigarettes shows that smoking is unsafe in any form, and insurers are cautioned to review their books of business for exposures to e-cigarettes.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported 12 deaths and 805 cases of lung injury linked to e-cigarettes (or vaping) as of this week. Of the 373 cases where data on the patients was available, about three-quarters were male, two-thirds were 18 years to 34 years old and 16 percent were younger than 18 years
The cause of the illnesses has not been linked to any specific ingredients or devices. And while health officials continue to investigate, people are cautioned to refrain from using e-cigarettes altogether, and particularly to stay away from vaping liquids or devices sold on the street.
And if the outbreak of lung disease is not bad enough, e-cigarette batteries have been known to explode, causing serious injuries and a few deaths. A study from George Mason University estimated there were more than 2,000 visits to U.S. emergency rooms from 2015 to 2017 for e-cigarette burns and explosion-related injuries.
In a recent blog post, Tim Fletcher, Senior Emerging Issues Specialist at Gen Re suggests that in response to the situation insurers should review their small commercial retail book to determine whether any are selling e-cigarettes. Such retailers could include convenience stores, gas stations, and liquor stores. The blog lists several forms and ISO exclusions for e-cigarettes.
The Gen Re blogger reminds insurers that the duty to defend exists in all standard CGL occurrence forms with the potential to incur uncapped defense costs.
Most people don’t like to think about risk — especially when planning a holiday abroad. If they think about travel risk at all, it tends to be in terms of nuisances like flight cancellations or misrouted luggage.
The collapse of British travel company Thomas Cook, which left many thousands of travelers stranded, highlights the types of risks travelers rarely think about.
This week’s seemingly overnight collapse of British travel company Thomas Cook – leaving approximately 600,000 travelers stranded worldwide and leading U.K. authorities to launch what has been called be the “largest peacetime repatriation ever” – underscores several of the myriad risks that most travelers rarely think about.
For better or worse, when I hear “repatriation” the word is typically followed in my mind by “of remains.” While mass repatriations like the one occurring this week are rare, people often die while traveling for pleasure or business. Whether it’s headline-grabbing strings of mysterious deaths like those in the Dominican Republic earlier this year or more common, less publicized deaths by auto, drowning, or natural causes, the cost and complexity of returning the bodies of loved ones can compound the stresses typically experienced by grieving families. A travel policy with adequate coverage for repatriation of remains is a relatively inexpensive way to help address this burden.
Now, you’re even more likely to become ill or injured while traveling than you are to die. Have you checked your current health insurance to see what it does and doesn’t cover when you’re traveling outside your country? Depending on what you learn, you may want to consider buying medical travel insurance. If your health policy does provide international coverage, the U.S. State Department advises that you remember to carry your insurance policy identity card and a claim form.
In the case of a serious illness or injury, the State Department says, medical evacuation can cost more than $50,000, depending on your location and condition. A policy that covers medical evacuation and emergency extraction (say, in the event of natural disaster or political unrest) also is worth considering for international trips.
Perhaps the most important lesson to draw from the “surprise” collapse of 178-year-old Thomas Cook is that it wasn’t exactly a surprise for those who were paying attention. As the U.K.-based Guardian news site reports, “The tour operator’s woes go back much further” than its inability to secure a £200 million lifeline from its bankers. The Guardian calls Thomas Cook “a victim of a disastrous merger in 2007, ballooning debts and the internet revolution in holiday booking. Add in Brexit uncertainty, and it was perhaps only a matter of time before the giant of the industry collapsed.”
Travelers often are so focused on capturing bargains that they don’t take the time to research the organizations bringing them great deals or the safety considerations in the lovely destinations being marketed to them. In travel, as in other adventures, it’s often the case that “you get what you pay for.”
Maybe a bit of research might have kept some of the hundreds of thousands of inconvenienced Thomas Cook clients from putting all their holiday eggs in a single overstuffed basket.
On September 19 Advisen hosted its second annual Big, Nasty Claims Conference at the New York Law School. The discussion focused on the issues that are driving mass torts and class actions that have the potential to exceed $100 million.
In her opening remarks, Ellen Greiper, partner with Lewis Brisbois, said that seven to nine figure verdicts are becoming common, a statement echoed by many of the panelists. And in his keynote address, Sherman “Tiger” Joyce, president of the American Tort Reform Association cited the trend of courts becoming a vehicle for public change that started with the tobacco litigation in the 1990s and continues through today’s opioids liability litigation. He also noted that the sheer “critical mass” of claimants is driving astronomical verdicts, for example the Xarelto® blood thinner lawsuit had 25,000 claimants and resulted in a $775 million verdict.
He mentioned speaking with an insurer who was ready to settle an older, expired claim for $150,000. Then legislation came through, changing the statute of limitations – and the claim demand changed to $50 million. “It’s not going to stop here. It’s never a one-off when it comes to this type of activity. Toxic torts, there are any number of events this will migrate to. Be on the alert for the exposure,” he warned the audience. “It’s gotten to the point where it’s just exploding.”
Joyce also cited liberal expert evidence rules, and the bending of personal jurisdiction rules, especially in so-called judicial hellholes, leading the way to more and bigger casualty losses.
Jim Blinn, executive vice president, Client Solutions, Advisen and Jesse Paulson, managing director, U.S. Excess Casualty Leader, Marsh, led the session dealing with frequency and severity trends for losses larger than $100 million, including a growing number of verdicts that breach the $1 billion threshold. The audience got a glimpse into Advisen’s proprietary excess casualty loss database via a slide listing recent colossal verdicts. Topping the list were Monsanto’s Roundup, Johnson & Johnson’s Pinnacle hip replacements and opioids and PG&E’s Camp Fire related losses.
In a session dealing with the insurance industry’s response to large claims Kathy Reid, senior vice president of Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance said that the more information the insurer has about a client the better — uncertainty causes price to increase. She said that while this is not the best time for insurers to come into the market some middle market casualty business can still be profitable.
So what types of Big Nasty Claims keep insurance executives up at night? Paul DeGiulio, senior vice president of General Casualty and Health Care Claims, Allied World, cited incidents causing multiple claims such as train wrecks or industrial explosions. Aging infrastructure and commercial auto (with rising fatalities on the road) are also areas of concern. And in premises liability, more businesses are being held liable when customers fall victim to crime in parking lots and garages.
By Brent Carris, Research Assistant, Insurance Information Institute
Left to right: Brett Lingle, Zoë Linder-Baptie, James Ballot and Brent Carris
The Wharton Risk Center and the Insurance Information Institute co-sponsored the second annual Hack-for-Resilience at PennApps XX, the nation’s oldest and largest student-run college hackathon. Presentations were given by Carolyn Kousky and Brett Lingle of the Wharton Risk Center School; and the I.I.I.’s James Ballot.
From September 6 – 8, 18 student teams used software and hardware technologies to “hack”—conceive and build new apps and devices—ways to combat the risks posed by natural disasters, such as hurricanes, wildfires, and floods. The students also vied to create either a product or service that provided insurance in a customer-friendly manner, a category generally known as Insurtech.
A panel of judges from the I.I.I. and the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center selected the winners.
First place in the Insurtech category was Wildfire Protect– a parametric wildfire insurance product designed to provide immediate payouts to insureds that experience property damage from wildfire.
Second place was a tie between Prophet Profit and Navig8. Prophet Profit is an app designed to help households save money by allocating funds in all sectors of the stock market. The Navig8 team created an app to assist the visually impaired communicate during a disaster.
First place in the resilience category was awarded to a hack called Phoenix. This team created an autonomous drone which detects and extinguishes fires.
On September 11, 2001 terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. The attacks remain the deadliest and most expensive terrorist incidents in U.S. history, with insurance losses totaling about $47.0 billion in 2019 dollars, according to I.I.I. estimates.
In the wake of the attacks the U.S. Congress enacted the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA). The act creating a federal backstop for catastrophic terrorism losses that is designed to keep terrorism risk insurance available and affordable. It was renewed in 2005, 2007 and again in 2015. The act is set to expire on December 31, 2020.
Over the next months the Triple-I Blog will run stories featuring key participants in the terrorism risk insurance market and highlight news stories from our database from the periods immediately following 9/11 (before TRIA) and 2015 (when TRIA briefly lapsed).
Below is an abstract from the I.I.I. database citing a BestWeek article from October 1, 2001. The article refers to the fact that the heaviest insured losses were absorbed by foreign and domestic reinsurers, the insurers of insurance companies. Because of the lack of public data on, or modeling of, the scope and nature of the terrorism risk, reinsurers felt unable to accurately price for such risks and largely withdrew from the market for terrorism risk insurance in the months following September 11, 2001
California endured the largest and most destructive wildfires in state history in 2017 and 2018. The aftermath has left many wondering whether catastrophic wildfires will be the new normal for California and other fire-prone states, and, if so, what can be done. As the 2019 wildfire season progresses, there is a sense of urgency in the discussions among homeowners and business owners, policymakers, insurance companies and community leaders about how to change the paradigm in which wildfire-prone areas manage and respond to wildfire risks.
The Insurance Information Institute was fortunate to get an opportunity to speak with someone who is on the front lines of wildfire response. Frank Frievalt is the Fire Chief at Mammoth Lakes Fire Protection District and part of the Western Fire Chiefs Association (WFCA). He is leading the insurance section of the WFCA’s Wildfire Initiative. The WFCA has recently formed a partnership with ISO and Interra to help better understand wildfire risk for communities.
I.I.I.: Many are concerned that the severity of wildfire events in the United States will only increase. Do you agree? If so, what do you think some of the major factors for this increase are?
FF: What we currently have is an alignment of factors. We have 100 years of 100 percent fire suppression policy, so fuel loadings are off the scale in environments where fire is part of the natural ecology. We have growth of houses built in the Wildland–Urban Interface (WUI) fueled by market forces (there is an estimated $250 billion in assessed home valuation in the 11 western states). There is the weather piece – the data is pretty clear that we are having a shift in climate which is not likely to change quickly. You also have ignitions which are mostly caused by people, and unless people’s general behavior improves remarkably, I don’t see any reason why the contributing factors are going to change.
I.I.I.: Tell us about the Wildfire Initiative and how you see a partnership between the WFCA and insurers developing?
Frank Frievalt: After becoming the Mammoth Lakes Fire Chief in late 2012 I began to notice a disconnect with ISO’s FireLine risk assessment ratings for structures in WUI communities and the Defensible Space guidelines we use in the Western Fire Service. I set out to understand how ISO’s FireLine worked and reached out to ISO.
The main thing that we need to do is get technical facts empirically validated about mitigations for structural hardening that will deter ember reception at the structure. That’s how we’re losing most of the structures, it’s not direct flame contact. Once we have them identified and validated then we have to look into how these mitigations can be applied actuarially. We’ve been working with ISO who are really open to closing the knowledge gap.
Part of our goal is to have fire services and the insurance industry stand shoulder to shoulder and look at the mitigations that actually change the needle on outcomes, because we have the same goal – the protection of life and property.
I.I.I.: What are some of the public policy missteps that you see in relation to wildfire mitigation?
We’re only now coming to understand that the federal policy of 100 percent fire suppression will guarantee significant fuel loading and once the fire is established it’s going to burn extremely hot.
California has the most robust WUI code in the country; but that’s not a common situation. Fire Chiefs we collaborate with in the West are frequently opposed by developer and even local government interests when attempting to incorporate more stringent WUI codes.
We really cannot approach the present WUI problem using past approaches from the fire service, insurance industry, or legislation; we are experiencing conditions that are significantly different from the past both as individual variables, and synergistically among each other.
I.I.I.: What do you think about recent wildfire legislation in California?
FF: Anytime there is a social disruptor people get frustrated and call their legislator, and then we start to see reactive-based legislation that is quickly passed, but frequently lacks the necessary detail to implement, track, and manage it.
About 11 months ago there was a flood of this type of legislation that hit California. AB 1516 is one of the most significant pieces but it needs to be followed closely and massaged. It calls for a risk model advisory group and we are working with legislators on that.
The success of public policy requires public buy-in. No public policy is effective that’s just purely enforcement related. The best work that’s going to be done is not by my firefighters or insurance agents – it’s going to be done by Mr. and Mrs. Smith annually and diligently maintaining proscribed defensible space, maintaining structural hardening (mostly retrofits), and then federal, state, and local government works on fuels management which is on the perimeter of communities.
We have got to get a connection with what we’re doing in defensible space inspections and what we’re doing in risk modeling. If my defensible space requirements are the same as the insurance company’s requirements to retain insurance at an affordable rate, then we increase our level of public buy-in to the mitigations that matter.
I.I.I.: Could you suggest a practical list of mitigations for homeowners?
FF: This is not the definitive list, we are still working to come up with that, but here is what I can offer now:
*Window assembly (an unintended consequence of the energy efficiency push led to vinyl windows, which melt and drop out making the building exposed to embers – windows are a big issue)
It’s vitally important the we collectively (and that includes I.I.I.) get involved in measuring the most cost-effective retrofit mitigations for these items. New houses can be built to new code but older houses need to retrofit.
Preliminary studies are indicating that structures built to the 2008 WUI code, and those that had a successful first WUI inspection had a 30 percent less loss to wildfire.
I.I.I.: Can you talk about the role emerging technology plays in mitigation and firefighting?
FF: This area is moving remarkably fast, perhaps too fast; we have a situation where technologies are seeking problems to solve rather than a situation where problems are seeking the best technical tools toward solutions. We need to focus on asking the right questions first. That said, I believe that big data analysis, real-time modeling at the parcel level, hyperspectral imaging, full-scale ember laboratory experimentation, and converting hazard mitigations to actuarial risk are among the top technological leverage points emerging in the WUI discussion.
I.I.I.: Any thoughts on the future of fireproof houses?
FF: I’m not sure the “fireproof” house is plausible in the literal sense. A concrete box would not burn, but it doesn’t have much curb appeal either. The future of survivable houses in the WUI will exist in the shared space between fiscally and socially acceptable risk, market forces on development cost/sales, and the level of effort communities are willing to put into prevention of, and response to, the wildfires that are a natural part of the western ecosystem.
I.I.I.: What are some of the public education efforts of the initiative?
FF: The public education will be secondary to where the science leads us. Whatever we settle on, the public education message must be consistent in content, and recognition, between the fire service and the insurance industry. The terminal objective of public education is to induce informed decisions that encourage behaviors beneficial to the public good. If we fail to send a consistent message, public education efforts will be fragmented and lack credibility; we will have failed to serve the public good.
Terrorism, by design, is unpredictable, hugely destructive, and to date uninsurable through private market methods alone.
Few events demonstrate this better than the 9/11 attacks, in which terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. The attacks remain the deadliest and most expensive terrorist incidents in U.S. history, with insurance losses totaling about $47.0 billion in 2019 dollars, according to I.I.I. estimates.
U.S. and international insurers were able to pay virtually all the claims from the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. But insurers also made it clear that they could not, on their own, cover future losses caused intentionally by people acting strategically to attack select targets intentionally. In response to these concerns, the U.S. Congress enacted the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (TRIA), creating a federal backstop for catastrophic terrorism losses that is designed to keep terrorism risk insurance available and affordable. Renewed in 2005, 2007 and again in 2015, the act is set to expire on December 31, 2020.
Although the expiration is still more than a year away, U.S. commercial insurers are preparing for the possibility that the federal backstop might expire, and federal financial assistance is unavailable for a catastrophic terrorist event.
A new I.I.I. report, A World Without TRIA: Incalculable Risk, concludes that the terrorism insurance market is more robust than in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, but – similar to the situation in 2015 – does not appear to have the ability to bear all terrorism risk.
In this context, the report offers a historical overview of TRIA – why it exists and how it functions – to inform the discussion about the potential consequences should the program disappear. The report discusses:
Commercial terrorism risk insurance before the 9/1 1 attacks
How the attacks changed the terrorism risk insurance marketplace
The enactment of the federal Terrorism Risk Insurance Act and the program’s structure
What happened when the program briefly expired in 2015
How a failure to reauthorize the program in 2020 could affect terrorism risk insurance
Over the next months the Triple-I Blog will run stories featuring key participants in the terrorism risk insurance market and highlight news stories from our database from the periods immediately following 9/11 (before TRIA) and 2015 (when TRIA briefly lapsed). You can follow the topic here.
By Lynne McChristian, I.I.I. Media Spokesperson and Non-resident Scholar
If Hurricane Dorian left its imprint on your home or business, you’ve likely already started the claims process with a call to your insurer. Knowing what happens next will be helpful as the recovery begins.
The insurance claims process is indeed a process. There are steps involved and requirements from both the policyholder and the insurance company. Most people have never had to file an insurance claim of any sort. And if they had, it might have been an automobile accident claim, which can be far less complex that one that involves damage to something as large and costly as a home and whatever is inside it.
After a widespread natural disaster, insurers take a triage approach to claims handling, and that means those people who suffered the most damaging losses are seen first. Obviously, everyone with damage wants to be seen promptly, yet taking care of people in order of damage is what serves those most in need.
After you report a claim, someone will be sent out to appraise the damage. You might have more than one insurance claims professional visit, as there is separate expertise involved – depending on the damage you reported. You might have someone look at the structure, an additional claims adjuster for the contents damage, and then a flood damage claims expert visit your property, if you have flood insurance protection. Some of these insurance professionals may work directly for your insurer, while others are hired as independent contractors to give your claim faster attention. Tip: Get a business card and cellphone number for every person who appraises the damage, so you can follow up.
If your home is so badly damaged that you cannot live in it, you may get a check on the spot from your claims adjuster. This is not a settlement check. It is coverage that is part of a standard homeowners policy, called Additional Living Expense. It covers the extra expenses you’ll have if you must live elsewhere while your home is repaired or rebuilt.
Above all else, keep organized and retain all your receipts. Temporary repairs you made to prevent further damage are covered under your policy. You will want to keep the process rolling to return to normal – and insurers want that, too.
