Re: Re: Re: "an act of war" & insurance payments

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Justin Schwartz wrote:

> > Would it make any difference. Would insurance ever cover acts of terrorism?
> > I thought that damage due to terrorism or insurrection would be
> > automatically excluded. But no doubt someone with more expertise can set us
> > straight.
>
> No, an insurance policy t is a contract. It can have any lawful
> subject matter. You can insure anything. Some film stars insure
> their breasts. Many insurance contracts exclude damage resulting
> from terrorism, war, or "acts of God," but it's not the law that
> they have to. You could insure against terrorism if you were willing
> to pay for the coverage. What would be charged depended on the risk.
> For you, it would probably be cheap. For the WTC, it would probably
> be very expensive. If the WTC were _not_ insured against terrorism,
> I would be surprised. I think that it would be negligent to fail to
> insure it against terrorism.

This all seems weirdly ghoulish, but CNBC had an insurance pundit on
earlier today who said the WTC was insured for terrorism, and that he
expected big claims would be paid. The consensus is that payments
could range around $20b. The major inscos say they can handle it, and
another CNBC pundit today thought that the disaster could actually be
good for the insurance industry, because it would give them good
leverage to raise premiums.

Doug