Following the huge success of the inaugural Latin American Claims (re) Insurance Forum held in Miami last year, attendees from over 15 different countries, returned to Miami on 16-19th May 2016 to attend the three day second annual forum hosted by Kennedys and QLDG. Over 40 industry-leading speakers from companies that included AIG, Allianz, Chubb, Liberty, several Lloyd’s syndicates, Munich Re, QBE, Swiss Re and Zurich presented on various hot topics for the insurance industry in the region, sharing their experiences in a collaborative way.
Furthermore, the Forum presents delegates (which includes leading claims and underwriting officers working for reinsurers and insurers, loss adjusters, and experts) with unparalleled opportunities to develop new business relationships among professionals in the insurance and reinsurance industry who are at the top of their game, bringing them together in one room for the panel discussions, and during various networking cocktails hosted across Brickell Avenue in Miami.
The discussion on construction claims got a lot of attention, as we know the region is undergoing a huge expansion in the number of large high value construction projects, oftentimes funded by global investors who are less familiar with the region, receiving worldwide recognition such as the Olympic project in Brazil, and the expansion of the Panama canal. The question is whether the region is as up to date on best practices for delivery of such large scale projects as it could be. Whilst some projects are delivered in time and without problems, more commonly, these large high value projects are riddled with issues. For example, with design defects, for failure to invest in scale models at an earlier stage of the design process, and due to the extraordinarily challenging geotechnical issues that are prevalent in the region and often go undiscovered or worse ignored. Furthermore, there are several key problems that we encounter time and time again.
These relate mainly to lack of clarity between insurance products, and in particular, when, for example, the Construction All Risks Policy (CAR) concludes and the Operational Policy kicks in. Perhaps a solution is to draft these policies with language that aligns with the Building Contract such that there is no question as to when the works are completed and are no longer in their construction phase by referencing completion certificates or the like. Also, the parties on a claim often look to the CAR cover to cover damage which manifests significantly after the construction works have concluded and the project is in full operational mode. There would appear to be a lack of understanding of design exclusions within policies, and that reliance on a CAR policy for full design cover was a mistake and the term “all risk” was a bit of a misnomer as a professional indemnity policy should capture the true elements of design, to the extent that the CAR excludes it. The problem encountered by the panel was that they usually find that no professional indemnity policy exists or is insufficient therefore providing more gaps in cover.
Cyber risks are also becoming an increasing opportunity for carriers in the region where there is a general lack of awareness and coverage. The most serious risks that the market is considering at present are potential attacks on the operating controls of facilities such as nuclear plants, hospitals and other large institutions where the hack could result in very grave consequences. Cyber insurance exists to cover the losses relating to damage to, or loss of information from, IT systems and network and policies generally include significant assistance with handling the incident itself, which can be essential when faced with reputational damage or regulatory enforcement. In Latin America, paucity of information stands as one of the main challenges considering that data about cyber breaches and losses exist in small quantities in this region, aggravated by the reluctance of companies to report details of cyber breaches in fear of reputational risk, losing market share, etc. As a result of this, international insurers doing cyber insurance business in Latin America are relying mainly on regionally adapted track records from Europe and the US that do not always translate well into the region.
One of the most engaging panels concerned environmental losses and claims under an “All Risk” cover. This panel considered, as a case study, a claim relating to the failure at a biogas plant that required an adjacent distillery to purchase alternative fuel to continue operations. The insured asserted that the process failure was due to insecticide spraying on nearby fields that “poisoned” holding ponds with raw material which was a key element to the production process. The experts provided an overview of how the facility works and what its general operating parameters are, highlighting the sensitivity of the system to things like temperature and pH (acidity) to assessing causation.
A major takeaway from the technical analysis is that it is in the best interest of both insurers and insured to adhere to technical specifications, especially process monitoring requirements, which will allow for a definitive causal analysis in the event of process failure.
From the legal perspective, the All Risk section of the policy presented additional challenges such as a lack of definitions in the policy and for not having a customized wording for this specific type of risks. What made this panel particularly interesting was the discussion between the participants sharing their experiences when underwriting similar types of environmental/biological risks and how policies could be better written.
Bringing together experts across the region on such topical matters, certainly provided unique insight into the issues that are regularly encountered in the region.
2016 Miami Claims Forum
(re) Insurance Professionals Miami (Latin America & Caribbean) 