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Marine Insurance Industry Bracing for Huge Claims from the Baltimore Bridge Disaster

Marine Insurance Industry Bracing for Huge Claims from the Baltimore Bridge Disaster

The marine insurance industry is bracing for huge claims from Tuesday's Baltimore bridge disaster. Insurance claims from the collision of the Dali containership with the Francis Scott Key Bridge could be on par with a 2012 maritime disaster that led to $1.5 billion in payouts, John Miklus, the president of the American Institute of Marine Underwriters, told trade magazine Insurance Business on Tuesday. Luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Italy in January 2012, killing 32 people in one of Europe's worst modern maritime tragedies. That disaster led to the marine insurance industry's highest payout, according to the trade publication. "I wouldn't be surprised if this were similar," Miklus told Insurance Business. It was not immediately clear how long it took to settle all of Costa Concordia's claims, but it appears to have taken at least a few years. "You've got various components to the loss," Miklus added. "A big one is going to be rebuilding the bridge and all the loss of revenue and loss of tolls while that's taking place." The Baltimore bridge brought in about $53 million in toll revenue for the Maryland Transportation Authority in 2023, Moody's analyst Cintia Nazima told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday. Other insurance claims from Dali's Baltimore collision could include damage to the ship and its cargo, as well as business interruption, property, trade credit, and worker compensation, per Business Insurance. The marine insurance and reinsurance markets are likely to foot most of the bills, S&P Global reported on Tuesday. The Baltimore bridge itself is insured by insurance giant Chubb, per Insurance Insider. Dali, the ship, is covered by Britannia P&I Club, a specialist insurer that provides protection and indemnity cover for the maritime industry. Britannia is a member of the London-based International Group of P&I Clubs. The International Group of P&I Clubs will only cover the first $10 million in claims from any one incident, per the company's website. The remaining bill will be shared by the members, groups from specialist marketplace Lloyd's of London, and reinsurers. The claims process could take years, mirroring the situation surrounding the Ever Given containership, which ran aground and blocked the Suez Canal for six days in March 2021. SCOR, a French reinsurer estimated in June 2022 that Ever Given's claims could top $2 billion. "It will take many years to settle the claims from the Ever Given and the process will include much debate about who is liable," SCOR wrote in the report. "The issue of responsibilities and applicable laws in today's global maritime world is complex."
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Marine Mutual Britannia Confirms Insurance Role in Baltimore Bridge Ship Collision

Marine Mutual Britannia Confirms Insurance Role in Baltimore Bridge Ship Collision

A marine protection and indemnity insurer confirmed it is part of coverage for a container ship that hit a bridge in Baltimore, collapsing the bridge and causing unknown damage at this time. "We can confirm that the ship Dali is entered with Britannia P&I Club," the marine mutual said in a statement to BestWire. "We are working closely with the ship manager and relevant authorities to establish the facts and to help ensure that this situation is dealt with quickly and professionally." The container ship hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore at about 1:30 a.m. EST on March 26, crisis management firm MTI said in a statement sent to BestWire. Grace Ocean Pte Ltd. owns the Singapore-flagged container ship “Dali," and Synergy Marine manages the vessel. “Reinsurers will bear the bulk of the insured cost of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore," said Matilde Jakobsen, senior director, analytics, AM Best. "Liability cover for most shipping vessels is provided through protection and indemnity insurers known as
P&I Clubs."

Jakobsen said the P&I segment is dominated by the members of the International Group of P&I Clubs, which collectively insure approximately 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage. As part of the International Group’s pooling arrangements, member clubs mutually reinsure each other by sharing claims above $10
million.

Additionally, the group buys general excess-of-loss reinsurance cover up to $3.1 billion in the open market, Jakobsen said.

"While the total cost of the bridge collapse and associated claims will not be clear for some time, it is likely to run into the billions of dollars — well above the $100 million attachment point for the GXL contract," she said. "The insurance issues due to the collapse of the bridge will take a long time to determine and may involve several lines such as property, cargo, liability, trade credit and contingent business interruption. The claim will likely involve several insurers, reinsurers, subrogation, and legal issues and will serve to add to the
increasing challenges in reinsurance availability.”

According to MTI, the vessel collided with one of the pillars of the Francis Scott Key Bridge with two pilots onboard. All crew members, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there are no reports of any injuries amongst the crew. There has also been no pollution reported. At least six construction crew members on the bridge at the time of the collapse are missing, according to reports. The Dali has an Indian crew of 22 and was outbound from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka. The exact cause of the incident is yet to be determined, MTI said. "The Dali has now mobilized its qualified individual incident response service," MTI said. "The U.S. Coast Guard and local officials have been notified, and the owners and managers are fully cooperating with federal and state government agencies under an approved plan." Shipping firm A. P. Moller-Maersk confirmed the Dali is time chartered by the company. “We are horrified by what has happened in Baltimore, and our thoughts are with all of those affected," the company said in a statement to BestWire. "We can confirm that the container vessel 'Dali,' operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group, is time chartered by Maersk and is carrying Maersk customers’ cargo. No Maersk crew and personnel were onboard the vessel. "We are closely following the investigations conducted by authorities and Synergy, and we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed," Maersk said. The shilling company said it does not own nor does it operate the vessel that has been involved in the Baltimore incident. Despite a relatively benign year for pool claims in 2023, P&I clubs sought further price improvements at the February 2024 renewal, to keep up with claims inflation, according to a new report from AM Best. The Best’s Market Segment Report, “P&I Clubs: Improving Underwriting Results but Further General Increases Needed to Keep Up With Inflation,” notes the general increases announced by P&I clubs for 2024 are slightly below those of the previous year (when some of the clubs applied increases up to 10%). AM Best considers the level of general increases necessary for clubs to maintain breakeven underwriting results in the face of inflationary economic conditions and the potential for a worse pool year to emerge in the future. AM Best’s report also notes the International Group of P&I Clubs renewed its reinsurance program at a lower price and without wholesale cyber and pandemic exclusions being imposed by its reinsurers.
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SEC Ramps Up Massive-Hack Probe With Focus on Tech, Telecom Companies

SEC Ramps Up Massive-Hack Probe With Focus on Tech, Telecom Companies

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is asking tech and telecom companies how they handled the sprawling 2020 SolarWinds cyberattack, and drawing fire from the cybersecurity industry and big business for what they call overreach. The SEC, which sought the information from a broader swath of victim companies in the wake of the massive hack, has been refining its inquiries, according to people familiar with it, who didn’t identify the companies. The regulator has asked for internal communications about the cyber-assault’s impact, probing for gaps in corporate security and for other cyber incidents, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a private matter. The probe — aimed partly at determining what the companies may have known but didn’t disclose — follows a landmark lawsuit the SEC filed in October against SolarWinds Corp., claiming it failed to maintain adequate controls and defrauded investors by downplaying security risks. SolarWinds is the Texas software firm whose flagship product was used as a Trojan horse in the attack. The sharpened inquiry into the victim companies themselves comes amid broader pushback against the agency’s regulatory ambitions. Powerful trade and lobbying groups have criticized Gary Gensler’s SEC over its regulation of climate policy, cryptocurrencies, market structure, trade processing and more. The US Chamber of Commerce, which isn’t a party to the SolarWinds suit, nonetheless filed a brief last month asking the court to consider its view — and its view is that the SEC is going too far. ‘Power Grab’ The agency’s “constant power grab” has left companies in a state of uncertainty, and legal peril, over how to design their internal controls, the Chamber and the Business Roundtable argued in their “friend of the court” brief in federal court in Manhattan. The Business Roundtable counts among its members such heavy hitters as Apple Inc.’s Tim Cook, Citigroup Inc.’s Jane Fraser and JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon. The SolarWinds case is “a watershed moment in the SEC enforcement program in terms of cybersecurity,” said Jennifer Lee, former assistant director in the SEC’s enforcement division, which is conducting the inquiry, and now a partner at Jenner & Block LLP. The commission has become “very aggressive” in scrutinizing public companies’ disclosures after a data breach “and now, with SolarWinds, is turning its focus to a company’s public statements made before a cybersecurity incident,” said Lee, who predicts the lawsuit could be a sign of future cases. Legal Test In the historic cyberattack, malicious code was installed in software updates. SolarWinds’ Orion software was one of the products the hackers weaponized to spread digital havoc among nine federal agencies and about 100 companies, including such names as networking gear maker Cisco Systems Inc. and cybersecurity firm FireEye Inc., now known as Mandiant Inc. It isn’t clear whether the two are among the companies that have received information requests from the SEC. Lawyers say the suit may be the first legal test of one of the SEC’s tools: what Congress intended when it required that public companies maintain certain “internal accounting controls” half a century ago to ward off bribery of foreign officials. The business trade groups say the agency has distorted the law by applying it to a corporate victim of cybercrime and effectively dropping “accounting” from the equation. “The outcome of this litigation will affect every public company,” Nicole Friedlander, a lawyer for the groups, said in a statement. “For the first time, the SEC asserts the power to penalize companies for alleged failures of controls over access to anything a company owns, not limited to balance sheet assets.” Serrin Turner, a lawyer for SolarWinds, said the case was as “unfounded as it was unprecedented.” “The business community has called for this case to be dismissed because the SEC is trying to expand cybersecurity disclosure obligations well beyond what the law requires,” he said in a statement. From the commission’s standpoint, cybersecurity controls are internal accounting controls, because they are meant to protect corporate assets, which the agency says SolarWinds failed to do. SEC’s Enforcement Director Gurbir Grewal said at a conference this month that there is a disconnect between what SolarWinds said publicly and what executives said internally. ‘Swiss Army Statute’ In the wake of the assault, the SEC wrote to a wide range of companies it believed were affected, to determine whether they had made appropriate disclosures to investors, if there was suspicious trading related to the cyberassault and whether private data had been compromised. The letter came from the enforcement division, which is responsible for investigating and punishing companies, but to encourage cooperation the agency signaled it wouldn’t penalize those that shared data voluntarily. The lawsuit, filed two years later, sparked a furor in the cybersecurity industry, as some argued it could deter future cooperation with the government. Grewal countered that view at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference. “No one is asking you to give the blueprint of how hackers got in, where hackers got in,” he said. The business leaders point to skepticism of the enforcement strategy within the SEC’s own ranks. In 2020 energy company Andeavor agreed to pay $20 million to resolve claims over stock buybacks. Three years later Charter Communications Inc. paid $25 million in a similar case. Each case drew dissents from two SEC commissioners, who expressed concern aboutthe use of the legal tool. They called it the “Swiss Army statute,” after the famous multi-purpose knife.
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Progressive Insurance Begins Dropping Homeowners Policies in Florida

Progressive Insurance Begins Dropping Homeowners Policies in Florida

It was a sinking feeling the moment Bradenton resident Ira Kasdan got the letter last month that he was being dropped by Progressive Insurance.

DROPPED BY PROGRESSIVE

"Dear Policyholder, your policy will expire at 12:01 on July 1st , 2024, for the following reasons. After careful consideration we are unable to offer you a renewal policy due to a reduction in our hurricane exposure. Please contact your agent to find replacement coverage," the letter read. Last fall Progressive confirmed to ABC Action News that they will not renew policies in Florida beginning in May of 2024 to "rebalance our exposure" they told us in a statement. "I was shocked, I was stunned," Kasdan said. "There may be a time where as much as we love Florida we may not be able to stay here."

DIFFICULT FINDING A NEW INSURANCE COMPANY

As a retiree on social security, his fears don't stop there. He said finding information on potential new companies is not easy. He emailed ABC Action News for help. "These are no-name carriers, companies you have never heard of. Or they have been around 2 to 7 years and in some cases, they seem to be off-shoots of bankrupt carrier or carriers who left the state," Kasdan said. "I'm afraid we spend a lot of money to buy coverage and all we have is a promise of coverage that might not be any good if we need it." He sent a list of things he'd like to see on a centralized website, urging the state to put together a one-stop shop online tool to help consumers shopping for new coverage. "I really wish the state would be proactive," he said. "Put up a website with metrics of all the carrier's doing business in the state: How long have you done business? How many homeowners do they insure? What is the percentage of claims being paid? How long did it take you to pay them?"

SOME INFORMATION IS NOT MADE PUBLIC

ABC Action News spoke with the Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis' office who offered a long list of resources available to consumers, but data this detailed and broken down by company is not available for the public a spokesperson said, citing much of the information is trade secrets, propriety to the insurance companies to keep the property insurance market competitive. "The idea that customer satisfaction ratings are a trade secret sounds like baloney," Kasdan said. "The information on how these new carriers handle claims and how happy or unhappy the customers are shouldn't be a secret. That is what people need to be able to decide which company they want to do business with." Mark Friedlander with the Insurance Information Institute said there is no one-stop shop for consumers looking for a new insurance company. "It's not to hide information from consumers, it's to hide information from competitors. It's very common," Friedlander said. "The consumers insurance agent needs to be the advocate in this process." Friedlander recommended consumers use third-party sites that independently rate insurance companies. He provided a list for consumers to start.      
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