Category Archives: Business Interruption

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Midwest Tornado Insured Losses Could Top $1B

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A series of tornadoes in the Midwest on Sunday that killed six, levelled homes and businesses and left tens of thousands without power may top $1 billion in insured losses, according to risk modeller RMS.

The New York Times reported that on Nov. 18, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn declared seven counties disaster areas and said he would seek relief funding from state and federal agencies. He also said the series of tornadoes were the deadliest to occur in the state in November.

Matthew Nielsen, director of model product management at RMS said in an email that while damage estimates are far from final, “There is a good chance that Sunday’s outbreak will likely rank as one of the top five most significant November outbreaks since 1950.”

The magnitude and severity of the tornado outbreak was driven by two factors, he said, “Unseasonably strong thermodynamic instability and unusually strong wind shear throughout the depth of the atmosphere.”

Robert P. Hartwig, Ph.D., president of the Insurance Information Institute said from the Chicago airport, en route to assess the tornado damage first hand, that there is “No question that it will at least be the second costliest tornado event of the year.” The largest event this year was the Moore, Okla., tornadoes, which approached $1.6 billion in insured losses. By comparison, damage from the Midwest tornadoes is spread over a wider area, impacting Illinois, Michigan and Indiana.

“There are thousands of damaged structures throughout the states that were hit—residential and commercial,” he said. “What’s difficult to tell at this point is the extent of commercial damage and that can really drive up the losses. Not only are commercial structures more expensive, but there is often a business interruption component as well.”

He explained that insured losses for tornadoes are typically higher than those for floods. Because there was no flooding involved, more of the losses would be covered by insurance, meaning a faster recovery. “The vast majority of property owners here are going to have insurance coverage. Uninsured losses may include some business interruption loss, vehicles that didn’t carry comprehensive coverage and uninsured structures,” he said.

As is generally the case after tornadoes, “Most people will be getting checks [from their insurers] very quickly, which will help them with temporary living expenses. It will also help them make initial repairs more quickly and provide funds for debris removal so that rebuilding can start,” Hartwig said.

Can Britney Spears Ward Off Piracy?

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Britney Spears

Pirates remain a notable risk for businesses that involve maritime activities like shipping for supply or distribution. While it’s easy to dismiss the idea with images of wooden ships, gangplanks and a thoroughly unwashed Johnny Depp, the face of piracy has changed, but it has far from disappeared.

In the last decade, increased pirate activity out of war-torn Somalia have drawn considerable media attention, especially as hundreds of ships were attacked and dozens hijacked and their crews held hostage. Pirates earned an average of $4.87 million per ship in 2011, a huge financial toll for businesses that was only compounded by rising need for kidnap and random insurance for crews.

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Yet the Horn of Africa and the Suez Canal are not the most perilous seas. Australia’s News Limited reported, “Shipping industry figures show that the waters around Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula is the world’s hotspot for pirates.

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” The International Maritime Bureau found that Indonesia has experienced a more than 50% surge in pirate attacks in the first half of 2013. Of the 48 attacks reported, 43 involved pirates boarding vessels and assaulting the crew. West Africa has also grown as a hotspot, and the Control Risks RiskMap Maritime 2013 also highlighted high conflict potential at sea off South Korea, Nigeria, and Bangladesh.

RiskMap Maritime 2013Some experts are turning to more creative measures to ward off pirates, Time magazine reported this week. To deter pirates from approaching supertankers off the east coast of Africa, merchant navy officer Rachel Owens said ships have begun blasting the musical stylings of Britney Spears.

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“Her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most,” Owens said. “These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect.”

It’s a colorful approach to consider, especially as Hollywood turns a spotlight on mismanaged pirate attacks with the new Tom Hanks movie “Captain Phillips.” Let’s just not take it too far – as Steven Jones, of the Security Association for the Maritime Industry, told Time, “I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention.”

Cyber Risk a Top Concern for C-Suites

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NEW YORK—Risk managers no longer have a problem getting the attention of their company board and executives when it comes to cyber issues, according to panelists at the Advisen Cyber Risk Insights conference yesterday.

At Royal Ahold N.V., in fact, a supervisory board “insists on an annual presentation on the insurance policies,” which include cyber, said Nicholas Parillo, vice president of global insurance for the company. Giving his annual presentation to the board is made much easier, because “the person before me is the chief security officer and before that, the CIO and it’s good to know that they are saying the same things I’m saying. That’s the level this kind of risk has achieved within major corporations.

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In the U.S., Ahold owns about 2,000 supermarkets—780 in the northeast, including Stop ‘n Shop and Giant Food Markets and 300 pharmacies, Parillo said. The company, which has annual revenue of $42 billion, also owns a number of chains throughout Europe.

Parillo noted that Ahold’s chief concern is the large amount of customer data needed for its goal of major online sales growth.

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“Our CEO a couple of years ago established a goal of increasing our online sales from $400 million annually to $1.5 billion,” he said. “We should hit that target in the next two years or sooner. One of our big concerns in this area is fast growth in ecommerce,” and also that “good governance surrounds” that growth.

The company purchased its first cyber security insurance policy in 2007, he said, an action that was hastened by “two watershed events in retail business,” the Hannaford Bros. Co. privacy violation and the TJ Maxx case. Both of these have run into the “hundreds of millions of dollars now with a significant amount of legal fees associated,” he said, adding, “These events made my job a lot easier in terms of going to my management and saying that this could happen to us, despite the biggest and the brightest in our IT group.”

Jimmy Kirtland, vice president, corporate risk management with ING said that in the past, “trying to convince your CFO and CEO and general counsel that there really was [cyber] exposure,” was an issue. He explained that 10 or 15 years ago, “Even if you were going to look at cyber coverage you had only three brokers you could go to.”

Since then, “There has been a complete turnaround in 10 years. The market has grown tremendously and so have the brokers and it’s become much more sophisticated, which we appreciate. The C-suite has recognized that this is something that has to be looked at,” he said.

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Dutch-based ING is restructuring, separating its banking and insurance operations. ING U.S. plans to rebrand as Voya Financial, a retirement, investment and insurance company, according to the company’s website. “In our case, one of the biggest concerns we had was that because of the split with our parent company, we had very little time to place our financial lines products, including cyber. So the concern is to get it right.”

The company filed an IPO in May, “and yesterday we announced we would have a secondary offering. When you don’t have the umbrella of a major global corporation anymore, you become keen on your risks and exposures,” Kirtland said.

What happens if technology fails at the company? “With us it really is out in the cloud,” Kirtland said. “Classic business insurance reimburses you for supply chain problems or if a warehouse burns down, so it’s an extra expense we have to worry about.”

To be able to stay in business in case of a technology failure, or in the case of “a system-wide blowout, we went with a time-limited type of retention. It’s a set amount based on the time you are out,” he explained.

Climate Change Report Causes Alarm

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New findings on climate change, establishing it as a manmade phenomenon, are garnering attention from the insurance industry, which recommends immediate action.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) newest report  “clarifies what businesses and investors already know, that climate change is happening now and human activity is the dominant reason why,” Mindy Lubber, president of CERES, a nonprofit organization that works with insurers and investors said recently on a conference call. “Climate change is disrupting all aspects of our global economy, including supply chains, commodity markets and the entire insurance industry, which is seeing exponentially large losses from extreme weather events.”

Lara Mowery, managing director, head of global property specialty practice with Guy Carpenter & Co., noted that the report should cause “significant concern” and impact how insurers and reinsurers shape their business going forward.

Insurers’ and reinsurers’ business plans “depend critically on understanding and assessing risk, which is likely to become even more challenging as weather variability increases,” she said. Identifying and understanding the causes and consequences of climate change is essential to “implementing workable risk management solutions.”

Global cat losses are increasing, she explained. In the 1980s, “the rolling 10-year annual average for the worldwide cat loss was less than $10 billion. In the last few years that average has jumped up to more than $50 billion average, based on that 10-year rolling time frame.” In addition, 2005, 2011 and 2012 represent the top three insured cat loss years on record, she noted.

Given the IPCC’s conclusion on flood, drought and changing weather patterns and evidence of this over the past 50 years, the industry needs to evaluate how these changes could impact future losses. As an example, she said, the most widespread hazard of global warming is coastal flooding. Impact of events such as Superstorm Sandy, which produced devastating storm surge, could have even worse consequences if sea levels continue to rise. “Insurers and reinsurers must continually assess the most up to date research and adjust their business plans according to increases in calculated loss.”

While this has meant more insurer capital is at risk, “that can’t be the only response, the only solution and the only answer. We can’t just keep putting more money in the path of what’s happening,” Mowery said.

She emphasized that the industry and insurance buyers can be taking steps now to address the risks.

A recent example of innovation in this area is the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s (MTA) $200 million catastrophe bond that was issued in July, “the first of its kind to cover storm surge specifically,” she explained. The MTA commented in the aftermath of Sandy that their traditional avenues for insurance and reinsurance “constricted dramatically,” making it more difficult for them to obtain the kind of risk transfer they needed.

She also pointed out that “We can’t continue to let human and economic costs escalate. Building codes and standards and land use strategies are accepted adaptation measures to improve resilience against flood, wind and fire impacts that may worsen under global warming.”