The ABI and a number of big-name insurers are among those showing cautious interest in the potential formation of a state-backed reinsurance scheme to help the market contend with future pandemics.
An article in Law360 reports that RSA director Nick Kitchen, a member of an ABI working group looking into the idea, told the ABI conference that contact has already been made with the government with a view to scheduling talks.
With insurers introducing sweeping exclusions in a bid to protect their balance sheets from future events on the scale of Covid-19, the government is under pressure to establish some mechanism for compensating businesses affected by similar events in future – presumably based on some kind of levy.
Kitchen said that Covid-19 had highlighted a serious protection gap that is only likely to grow. ‘We need to get stakeholders around the table,’ he said, ‘to look at how we can protect against other systemic events in future. We’d like to speak to the government, but we’re waiting on them.’
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