New group life catastrophe cover

JLT has developed a group life catastrophe cover facility that provides up to £150m in excess insurance.

The cover extends to terrorist acts including nuclear, chemical and biological attacks. War is excluded.

Andrew Davis, partner at JLT accident and health division, commented: “A stark legacy of 9/11 was that it underlined to group life insurers the potential for multiple person deaths from a single, shocking event. Concerned by the resulting exposures, most introduced event limits on group life policies to restrict the maximum amount recoverable from one event. Although the limit for multiple person deaths from one event is typically £100m, in some cases it can be as low as £50m or even £35m.”

He added: “It is quite realistic to speak of a combined overall exposure in the region of £300m to £400m for a sizeable workforce located at a single location, when taking into account wage-roll, the immediate death-in-service exposure and dependants’ liability combined. This creates the possibility of the company pension fund being reverted to for covering a substantial uninsured amount in the event of a catastrophic loss.”