Category Archives: Business Insurance

Beyond Fire: Triple-I Interview Unravels Lightning-Risk Complexity

Lightning is a more complex peril than it is often given credit for being, according to Tim Harger, executive director of the Lightning Protection Institute (LPI). In a recent interview with Triple-I CEO Sean Kevelighan, Harger discussed the importance of preparing for and preventing damage from this risk, which is second only to flooding when it comes to costly weather events.

People typically think about fire damage when they think about lightning. But Harger said, “Beyond the fire is the destruction of electrical wires and infrastructure that supports everything we do to communicate and to conduct business.”

If lighting strikes any of these structures, he said, “Activity is stopped.”

Harger cited the case of an East Coast furniture manufacturer that was struck.

“That one lightning strike cost them just over a million dollars in damage,” he said. “Yes, there was the typical fire that caused structural damage, but what was impacted on the ‘inside’ was even more costly. They had damaged inventory, production downtime, and loss of revenue during the repairs.”

Investment in a lightning protection system could have saved this business owner – and his insurer – the million dollars lost and prevented business interruption. Nearly $1 billion in lightning claims was paid out in 2018 to almost 78,000 policy holders, according to LPI.

“Lightning strikes about a 100 times every second,” Harger said. “When installed properly, lightning protection systems are scientifically proven to mitigate the risks of a lightning strike.”

 A lightning protection system consists of six parts: 

  • Strike termination device,
  • Conductors,
  • Grounding,
  • Surge protection,
  • Potential equalization, and
  • Inspection. 

Architects and engineers play an important role in specifying and designing these systems, and installation is completed by certified lightning protection contractors. When properly installed lightning is intercepted by the strike termination device and energy is routed through the conductors and into the grounding system, preventing impact to the structure or electrical infrastructure.

“Businesses already install fire alarms and sprinkler systems to mitigate greater risks of fires,” Harger said. “Lightning protection systems prevent a lightning strike from causing any damage. So the investment in a lightning protection system prevents personal injury and the costly impact of even one strike.”

Several insurers offer premium discounts for policyholders who invest in lightning protection systems. LPI invites insurance providers who are interested in sharing their customer incentives to contact them at lpi@lightning.org.

Group Captives Offer Cost-Sensitive Companies Opportunities to Savein Face of Inflation

By Max Dorfman, Research Writer, Triple-I

Today’s inflationary conditions may increase interest for group captives – insurance companies owned by the organizations they insure – according to a new Triple-I Executive Brief.

Group captives recruit safety-conscious companies with better-than-average loss experience, with each member’s premium based on its own most recent five-year loss history. Additionally, the increased focus on pre-loss risk management and post-loss claims management can drive members’ premiums down even further by the second and third year of membership.

“Each owner makes a modest initial capital contribution,” states the paper, Group Captives: An Opportunity to Lower Cost of Risk. “The lines of coverage written typically are those with more predictable losses, such as workers compensation, general liability, and automobile liability and physical damage.”

With these benefits, the group captive model can help to control spiraling litigation costs. This is particularly important as attorney involvement in commercial auto claims – notably in the trucking industry – drives expensive litigation and settlement delays that inflate companies’ expenses.

Indeed, a 2020 report from the American Transportation Research Institute found that average verdicts in the U.S. trucking industry grew from approximately $2.3 million to almost $22.3 million between 2010 and 2018 – a 967 percent increase, with the potential for even higher verdicts looming.

Group captives can improve control over these costs through careful claims monitoring and review, often through providing additional layers of support that improves claims adjusting effectiveness and efficiency.

“Given that members’ premiums are derived from their own loss history, this is yet another way that they are able to lower their premiums, proactively managing and controlling the losses that do occur,” the Triple-I report mentions. “Group captives can provide a viable way to protect companies across several lines of casualty insurance. Their prominence is likely to grow as economic and litigation trends continue to increase costs.”

Most companies that join group captives are safety-conscious, despite often being entrepreneurial risk takers. “While they embrace the risk-reward trade-off, they’re not gamblers,” said Sandra Springer, SVP of Marketing for Captive Resources (CRI), a leading consultant to member-owned group captive insurance companies. 

“They are successful, financially stable, well-run companies that have confidence in their own abilities and dedication to controlling and managing risk,” Springer added. “They believe they will outperform actuarial projections, and a large percentage of them do.”

Learn More:

Backgrounder: Captives and Other Risk-Financing Options

Firm Foundation:  Captives by State

White Paper: A Comprehensive Evaluation of the Member-Owned Group Captive Option

Video: Executive Exchange: Triple-I and Captive Resources

From the Triple-I Blog:

Latest Research on Social Inflation in Commercial Auto Liability Reveals a $30 Billion Increase in Claims

How Inflation Affects P&C Rates and How It Doesn’t

Inflation Trends Shine Some Light for P&C, But Underwriting Profits Still Elude Most Lines

Monetary Policy Drives Economic Prospects; Geopolitics Limits Inflation Improvement

PFAS-Related Litigation May Signal an Emerging Liability for Insurers

Max Dorfman, Research Writer, Triple-I

Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)—a varied group of human-made chemicals used in an array of consumer and industrial products—present a new potential liability for insurers, as U.S. regulatory activity continues to change, with lawsuit outcomes indicating this is an issue that will continue to develop.

PFAS, which have existed since the 1930s, are creating concern because of how ubiquitous they are, as well as their potential to harm people’s lives. They are used in everything from Teflon coatings to food packaging to firefighting foam, due to their capacity to resist oil and moisture. These qualities are also potentially damaging because they often stay in the human body, never entirely breaking down.

Though studies surrounding PFAS are not conclusive, they have been connected to cancer, pregnancy-induced hypertension, and thyroid disease. Their pervasiveness means everyone likely has some amount of PFAS in their blood stream. There is fear about their presence in water supplies, as well.

“PFAS are water soluble and dissolve readily in soil,” said Cindy Wilk, Global Environmental Liability Expert, Allianz Risk Consulting at AGCS. “An industrial accident or firefighting incident can result in their release into water sources, making local communities vulnerable, but PFAS can also migrate quickly through groundwater pathways to contaminate areas far from their original source.”

PFAS litigation continues to rise

PFAS litigation has seen tremendous growth over the past 20 years, beginning with a lawsuit filed against DuPont, the company that makes Teflon. DuPont was accused of contaminating water from a plant in West Virginia—resulting in a settlement to provide up to $235 million for medical monitoring of over 70,000 people. Several similar lawsuits have followed.

As of 2021, more than 5,000 PFAS-related complaints have been filed in 40 courts, with 193 defendants in 82 industries.

Additionally, in 2021, the PFAS Action Act passed the House and set the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on the recent course toward developing new PFAS standards. The act does not include a liability exception for water-wastewater utilities, despite the fact that these entities are not the source of PFAS, thus causing concern that they will be the target of civil litigation

How can insurers respond?

Although the Insurance Services Office (ISO) has not produced a PFAS-specific exclusion for commercial liability policies, work is being done on a draft exclusion, which could be published in late 2022. With that process still underway, several PFAS-related exclusions are circulating, some as a modification to the Total Pollution Exclusion or by establishing a stand-alone PFAS exclusion. Still, insurers must be wary of the potential liabilities, as the Biden Administration’s regulatory focus on PFAS could lead to increased litigation.

Reinsurer Gen Re recommends that insurers:

  • Take inventory of previously underwritten risks;
  • Carefully consider new risks at submissions; and
  • Keep abreast of PFAS, both as to scientific developments and the litigation that it spawns.

Piracy Incidents Decline, But Horizon Isn’t Clear

Maritime piracy in the first half of 2022 is at its lowest level since 1994, the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) says, with 58 incidents, down from 68 for the same period last year. Nevertheless, the organization cautions against complacency.

For the full year 2020, IMB listed 195 actual and attempted attacks, up from 162 in 2019. The COVID-19 pandemic may have played a role in that rise in pirate activity – as it is tied to underlying social, political, and economic problems – and 2022 may represent the start of a return of a downward trend.

Source: International Chamber of Commerce/International Maritime Bureau (IMB)

Many people outside the maritime and insurance industries don’t realize that piracy remains a costly peril in the 21st century. Global insurer Zurich estimates the annual cost of piracy to the global economy at $12 billion a year.  In its 2022 Safety and Shipping Review, global insurer Allianz reports that piracy comes behind machinery damage or failure, collision, and contact, in terms of number of loss-causing incidents globally – and that total losses have fallen 57 percent over the past decade.

However, the shipping industry is vulnerable to disruptions and, as Allianz points out, has been affected on multiple fronts by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: from loss of life and vessels in the Black Sea and disrupted trade to challenges to day-to-day operations that affect crews, cost and availability of fuel, and the growing for cyber risk.

“To date, the biggest impact has been on vessels operating in the Black Sea and/or trading with Russia,” Allianz says. “At the start of the conflict, approximately 2,000 seafarers were stranded aboard vessels in Ukranian ports. Trapped crews faced the constant threat of attacks, with little access to food or medical supplies, and a number have been killed.”

According to a recent industry survey, Allianz says, 44 percent of maritime professionals reported that their organization has been the subject of a cyber-attack in the last three years. Accumulations of cargo exposures at mega ports have been rising – and, with ports increasingly reliant on technology, an outage or cyber-attack could effectively close a port.

In February 2022, India’s busiest container port was hit by a ransomware attack, following incidents at U.S. and South African ports in recent years.

A third of organizations surveyed by Allianz said they don’t conduct regular cyber security training or have a cyber-response plan.

2022 P&C Underwriting Profitability Seen Worsening as Inflation, Hard Market Persist

The property & casualty insurance industry’s combined ratio – an indicator of underwriting profitability – is forecast at 100.7 for 2022, up 1.2 points from 2021, according to actuaries at Triple-I and Milliman, a risk-management, benefits, and technology firm. They presented their findings at a Triple-I members-only virtual webinar.

Combined ratio represents the difference between claims and expenses paid and premiums collected by insurers. A combined ratio below 100 represents an underwriting profit, and a ratio above 100 represents a loss. The industry in 2021 was barely profitable, with a combined ratio of 99.5.

Losses have been driven by significant deterioration in the personal auto line. Dale Porfilio, Triple-I’s chief insurance officer, said the 2022 net combined ratio for personal auto is forecast to be 105.2 – 3.8 points higher than 2021, driven primarily by significant deterioration in auto physical damage coverages.

Across most product lines, inflation, supply-chain disruptions, and geopolitical risk are expected to keep pushing insured losses and premium rates higher.

“We forecast 2022 P&C premium growth of 8.5 percent,” Porfilio said. “This is lower than the 9.2 percent growth in 2021, but still strong due to the hard market.”

Dr. Michel Léonard, Triple-I chief economist and data scientist, discussed key macroeconomic trends affecting the property/casualty industry results. He noted that insurance growth continues to be constrained by economic fundamentals, with replacement-cost increases well above pre-COVID levels and sub-par underlying growth.

Jason B. Kurtz, a principal and consulting actuary at Milliman, said another year of underwriting losses is likely for the commercial multi-peril line.

“More rate increases are needed to offset economic and social inflation loss pressures,” Kurtz said. “Social inflation” refers to the impact of litigation costs on insurers’ claim payouts, loss ratios, and, ultimately, how much policyholders pay for coverage.

Kurtz said the workers’ compensation line’s multi-year run of underwriting profits is expected to continue, although margins are likely to shrink further through 2024.

Dave Moore, president of Moore Actuarial Consulting, said the 2022 combined ratio for commercial auto is forecast to be 101.4 percent.

“We are forecasting underwriting losses for 2022 through 2024 due to prior-year development and the impact of inflation – both social inflation and economic inflation,” Moore said.

Report: Policyholders See Climate as a ‘Primary Concern’

By Max Dorfman, Research Writer, Triple-I (06/08/2022)

Nearly three-quarters of property and casualty policyholders consider climate change a “primary concern,” and more than 80 percent of individual and small-commercial clients say they’ve taken at least one key sustainability action in the past year, according to a report by Capgemini, a technology services and consulting company, and EFMA, a global nonprofit established by banks and insurers.

Still, the report found not enough action is being taken to combat these issues, with a mere 8 percent of insurers surveyed considered “resilience champions,” which the report defined as possessing “strong governance, advanced data analysis capabilities, a strong focus on risk prevention, and promote resilience through their underwriting and investment strategies.”

The report emphasizes the economic losses associated with climate, which it says have grown by 250 percent in the last 30 years. With this in mind, 73 percent of policyholders said they consider climate change one of their primary concerns, compared with 40 percent of insurers.

The report recommended three policies that could assist in creating climate resiliency among insurers:

  • Making climate resilience part of corporate sustainability, with C-suite executives assigned clear roles for accountability;
  • Closing the gap between long-term and short-term goals across a company’s value chain; and
  • Redesigning technology strategies with product innovation, customer experience, and corporate citizenship, utilizing advancements like machine learning and quantum computing

“The impact of climate change is forcing insurers to step up and play a greater role in mitigating risks,” said Seth Rachlin, global insurance industry leader for Capgemini. “Insurers who prioritize focus on sustainability will be making smart long-term business decisions that will positively impact their future relevance and growth. The key is to match innovative risk transfers with risk prevention and assign accountability within an executive team to ensure goals are top of mind.”

A global problem

Recent floods in South Africa, scorching heat in India and Pakistan, and increasingly dangerous hurricanes in the United States all exemplify the dangers of changing climate patterns. As Efma CEO John Berry said, “While most insurers acknowledge climate change’s impact, there is more to be done in terms of demonstrative actions to develop climate resiliency strategies. As customers continue to pay closer attention to the impact of climate change on their lives, insurers need to highlight their own commitment by evolving their offerings to both recognize the fundamental role sustainability plays in our industry and to stay competitive in an ever-changing market.”

Data is key

The report says embedding climate strategies into their operating and business models is essential for “future-focused insurers,” but it adds that that requires “fundamental changes, such as revising data strategy, focusing on risk prevention, and moving beyond exclusions in underwriting and investments.”

The report finds that only 35 percent of insurers have adopted advanced data analysis tools, such as machine-learning-based pricing and risk models, which it called “critical to unlocking new data potential and enabling more accurate risk assessments.”

Insurers, Regulators Push Back on Changes In S&P Rating Criteria

Insurers, regulators, and members of Congress have expressed concern about proposed changes in how Standard & Poor’s Global Ratings defines “available capital” in its rating criteria. Specifically, S&P would no longer consider certain debt to be counted as available for purposes of rating insurers’ financial strength and ability to pay claims.

“Disruptive” and an “overuse of market power” is how the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR) described the measure in an 18-page letter to S&P, which has requested comments by April 29 on its proposed methodology and assumptions for analyzing the risk-based capital adequacy of insurers and reinsurers.

S&P’s proposed changes, in ABIR’s view, would lead to the sudden removal of billions of dollars overnight that otherwise would be available to underwrite catastrophe risk – a sector in which average insured losses have risen nearly 700 percent since the 1980s.

“This debt is viewed as capital by the regulators,” ABIR CEO John Huff says in a news release. “If carriers are forced to restructure debt, they’ll get less favorable terms today. Any replacement debt will increase financial leverage, which is counter to the stability people seek from a rating agency.”

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, along with the U.S. state insurance regulators, through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, have expressed similar concerns about S&P’s proposed change in its rating criteria.

ABIR points out ambiguity in the timing of the rollout of the planned changes, saying, “Insurers and reinsurers will have no time to respond to the new debt treatment before S&P has indicated the changes will go into effect.”

“There is no glide path or grandfathering,” Huff says. “It’s just a cliff. “

Bermuda’s insurers urge the rating agency to provide a transition period for any such changes, as well as grandfathering debt that already is in place.

“If there’s a transition plan, we can work within that,” Huff says. “But having this so abrupt is quite disruptive. Standard & Poor’s should be adding stability, not causing disruption.”

Pandemic Fuels Growth in Captive Insurance

By Max Dorfman, Research Writer

The coronavirus pandemic and the financial challenges it presents have fueled growth in captive insurance – a form of self-insurance in which one or more entities establish their own insurance company. They also may insure the risks of organizations other than their major owners. 

“Wholly owned” captives are set up by large corporations to finance or administer their risk financing needs. If such a captive insures only the risks of its parent or subsidiaries, it is called a “pure” captive.  Multiple companies may also form a “group captive.”

Captive formations nearly doubled in 2020, according to a recent survey by Marsh. The global insurance broker and risk advisor’s survey of more than 1,300 captives also shows that gross written premiums in this area grew from $54 billion in 2019 to nearly $61 billion in 2020.

 In January 2022, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) board of governors unanimously approved a $175 million fund to create a captive for event cancellation. With insurers unable to cover risks related to the coronavirus pandemic – which falls under the umbrella of communicable diseases policies – because of the potential for unsustainable costs, the captive structure has become a more popular method to protect from losses.

The NCAA formed its captive after the 2020 NCAA basketball tournament was cancelled due to COVID-19, resulting in a $270 million payout – or about 40 percent of what the 1,200 participating schools would have earned for the tournament. In 2021, the NCAA limited the number of fans at the tournament, with the organization’s coverage allowing it to pay the total $613 million to members last year. However, their coverage for 2022 had expired, and communicable disease coverage was now difficult to find.

“When the NCAA looked to renew coverage for the 2022 tournament, a lot of it was going to look similar,” said John Beam, a broker for Willis Towers Watson, “but there is not coverage for communicable disease right now.”

The sports and entertainment industry experienced losses between $6 billion and $10 billion as the coronavirus pandemic raged on, with premiums in event insurance increasing between 25 percent and 50 percent. For many organizations, captive insurance provides a viable alternative for these risks.

Workers’ comp and captives

The coronavirus pandemic has also affected captive owners in the workers’ compensation field. Indeed, the pandemic, alongside the ensuing “Great Resignation,” during which employers have struggled to retain staff, has made many captive owners potentially more willing to pay workers’ comp claims, according to a panel at the recently held Captive Insurance Companies Association international conference.

Amy O’Brien, vice president of third-party administer sales at Gallagher Bassett Services Inc., a claims service provider, said the initial phases of the pandemic saw many insurers denying COVID-19-related claims. Claims asserting exposure at work were difficult to prove, and many captives questioned if the claims were associated with claimants’ work. Additionally, there were possible regulatory changes that these captives were concerned about.

“With medical costs continuing to rise, the most significant dynamic in terms of any company controlling their workers’ compensation costs and claims is ensuring that there are adequate tools in place to help mitigate medical costs for claimants under their workers’ compensation,” said Dustin Partlow, senior vice president at Caitlin Morgan Insurance Services and an expert in captive insurance solutions.

“But with omicron and the Great Resignation, we’re seeing a change where employers are saying, ‘What can I do to get this person back to work sooner?’” Gallagher’s O’Brien said.

Approximately 90,000 claims were processed by Gallagher Bassett that covered a COVID-19 issue, with over 60 percent of cases closed without payment, frequently due to the fact that there were no related medical expenses, O’Brien said. But the 40 percent that did result in a payment averaged $4,000 per case.

“The employee is more valuable now – so they are being treated right. The employer is saying: ‘What can I do to keep this person?’,” O’Brien added.

Truckers’ Premiums Keep Rising, Despite Safety Improvements, Coverage Changes

As with so many other goods and services, insurance for commercial trucks has become more costly since the pandemic – but a closer look at the numbers shows that this trend pre-dates COVID-19’s economic and supply-chain disruption.

“Despite reductions in insurance coverage, rising deductibles, and improved safety, almost all motor carriers experienced substantial increases in insurance costs from 2018 to 2020,” according to a recent report by the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI). And, while frequency and severity have been on the rise from 2009 to 2018, the report shows the rate of insurance cost increases during the period far exceeding the crash rate increase.

ATRI’s observations are consistent with findings in a recent study by Triple-I and the Casualty Actuarial Society (CAS) that the phenomenon known as “social inflation” accounted for $20 billion in commercial auto liability claims between 2010 and 2019. 

“External factors that go well beyond carrier safety force commercial trucking insurance costs to increase,” says Triple-I Chief Insurance Officer Dale Porfilio. “The higher premiums ultimately tend to be passed along to consumers in the form of higher prices for goods and services.”

ATRI recognizes three key areas of influence on premiums beyond crash history and policy components:

  • Economic impacts on the insurance industry,
  • Carrier-specific factors, and
  • Social inflation.

External economic conditions, including general inflation and rising health-care costs, contribute to increased insurance premium rates.

“Medical advances help save lives, but these treatments directly contribute to higher medical costs,” ATRI points out. “Similarly, technological advances in motor vehicles contribute to increasing costs associated with repairing them; electronics now make up 40 percent of the cost of a new vehicle.”

These higher costs affect premiums through larger claims and losses that have to be incorporated into pricing.

Premium rates also are affected by carrier-specific considerations like operational sectors, cargo values, states or regions of operation, company growth, and commitment to safety culture and technologies.

“Carriers demonstrating consistent year-over-year improvements in safety technology adoption, safe driver hiring and training practices, and crash history can potentially lower their premium costs, despite the current adverse environment,” ATRI said.

“Social inflation” refers to the impact of litigation and government policy trends on insurance claims and, ultimately, costs to policyholders. Social attitudes and behaviors affect insurance payouts through changes in laws and propensity to litigate, and jury awards don’t necessarily reflect logical conclusions or precedents. Jury decisions can be influenced by emotions, state and local laws or procedures, and plaintiff bar tactics. In recent years, practices like third-party litigation funding – investment by hedge funds and other third parties in lawsuits in return for a share in the awards – have played an increasing role in social inflation.

Cyber Tops Allianz 2022 Survey of Business Risks

By Max Dorfman, Research Writer, Triple-I

Cyber incidents are the top threat to businesses, according to the latest Allianz Risk Barometer survey, up from third place in 2021. This result follows several significant data breaches and hacks last year, including the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack, which caused a six-day shutdown and cost the company $4.4 million to regain access to its systems.

Business interruption fell to the second most important concern in a year marked by the continued presence of the coronavirus pandemic, cyberattacks, and natural catastrophes. Still, the report notes that the pandemic “has exposed the fragility and complexity of modern supply chains and how multiple events can come together to cause problems, raising awareness of the need for greater resilience and transparency.”

Natural catastrophe risk ranks third on the list – a jump from sixth in 2021. Global insured catastrophe losses increased to $112 billion in 2021, the fourth highest on record, according to Swiss Re.

While cyber is ranked as a more immediate threat to business than climate change, the report says these two perils are “linked by the fact that two of the most significant impacts expected from changes in legislation and regulation (the fifth top risk) in 2022 will be around big tech and sustainability.”

Pandemic outbreak fell to fourth place for 2022, with many companies comfortable that they are now better prepared for the consequences of these occurrences. According to the report, 80 percent of respondents believe they are “adequately” or “well” prepared.

The 11th annual report was developed from a late 2021 survey of 2,650 risk management experts from 89 countries and territories, including Allianz customers, brokers, industry trade organizations, risk consultants, and underwriters, with a focus on large- and small to mid-size companies.