Contingent Business Interruption Risk Coverage
Natural disasters across the Globe in 2011 (the Japan Tsunami in March last year, and the Thailand Floods from July to December) have had a far-reaching and lasting impact on businesses small and large world-wide, particularly computer companies for whom Japan and Thailand-based component manufacturers and exporters serve as vital links in their supply chains.
The negative effect of these disasters (on business) has also created a hardening in the attitude of reinsurers who now seek much more detailed information on clients’ suppliers, before agreeing to provide catastrophe insurance cover. The insurance market is now insisting upon greater transparency.
The approach of Europe’s biggest and perhaps best-known reinsurers to catastrophe cover, Munich Re and Swiss Re are being reported in the financial press as hardening. In addition to raising prices for catastrophe insurance cover, reinsurers are setting an 18-month deadline on risks being quantified in detail by clients.
How it works…
A large manufacturing company will have any number of direct or indirect suppliers which represent a critical exposure to the business. Until now, insurance could be bought for all such suppliers without declaring each by individual location.
However, where a group of suppliers supplying a specific industry sector cluster in a certain geographic region, the impact of a natural catastrophe in that area can seriously damage the profitability of the sector. Where re-insurers have a large book of nat cat business in such a sector, the accumulated impact on their balance sheet can be significant. The pain is particularly acute where the suppliers have not been named (prior to the event) and re-insurers have large, unquantified accumulations.
How SCAIR can help take the pressure off
If you are concerned about the effect this hardening of attitude from reinsurers could have on your business, the discipline promoted by SCAIR is your best option when it comes to softening that impact..
The SCAIR tool (see product details here) can lead your company to identify and understand your supply chain exposures in greater detail, thus enabling you to “tick re-insurers’ boxes”, to continue to buy the insurance coverage that you currently enjoy, in the most cost-effective way.
The big advantage of SCAIR (over other supply chain tools) is that it enables you to identify exposures and to quantify them for a range of different scenarios from physical damage, such as fire, earthquake and flood to non-physical damage, such as supplier insolvency and regulatory shutdown – quickly, effectively and affordably.