What's New—July 2008

Six reference manual updates and new issues of The Risk Report and Captive Insurance Company Reports (CICR) have been added to the IRMI infobases. We have also updated the home page and job function dashboards to facilitate navigation in the site.

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Newsletters & Journals

The July issue of The Risk Report, "Understanding Long-Term Terrorism Risk," by Dr. Gordon Woo seeks to convey broader understanding of the long-term terrorism risk and how it can be assessed for insurance purposes.

The July issue of Captive Insurance Company Reports begins with "FIN 48: A Roadmap Resembles IRS GPS" by Kate Westover. In it, she says that FIN 48 requires a considerable amount of disclosure relating to actual or potential income tax risks—akin to being a roadmap to the IRS—and discusses how it applies to captives. The rest of the publication deals with a series of corporate governance and related topics.

Reference Manuals

Contractual Risk Transfer contains an analysis of the indemnity provisions contained in a new set of construction contract forms. These recently drafted standard documents—ConsensusDOCS—were a collaborative effort on the part of several industry and professional groups. Also in this supplement, the table summarizing construction anti-indemnity statutes is revised to include updated information on the current state of the law in Colorado, Indiana, and Oklahoma. The discussion in section X.S has been expanded to include analyses of these two standard limitation endorsements, with some cautions about their use and the danger they pose to CGL insureds who assume the role of indemnitor in a business contract. Finally, the way in which contractual liability coverage and insured status for clients—two essential components of any contractual risk transfer—are dealt with in contractors pollution liability policies is the subject of new or expanded discussions in sections X.P, XI.K, and XVII.G.

D&O MAPS has been expanded to include the following policies and analyses.

IRMI Workers Comp contains a complete update of state-specific workers compensation self-insurance requirements. Also included is an update of state-specific data regarding the premium thresholds for experience rating eligibility and current information on small deductibles, in the states that allow this option. Changes to the manual have also been made that reflect the conversion of West Virginia to a competitive market effective July 1, 2008. Also provided in this supplement are updated state summaries regarding benefit information (see the Bulletin for details).

Pollution Coverage Issues adds a new analysis of how courts are applying post-1986 pollution exclusions. The analysis is accompanied by a chart of more than 200 court cases dealing with post-1986 pollution exclusions. (For specific information see the Bulletin.) Additionally, PDFs of the full court opinion of 68 cases have been added to a new Caselaw Library, which is provided to subscribers of PCI at no additional charge. Lastly, this quarters edition of the Environmental Insurance Reporter examines the Ninth Circuit's recent decision in United States v. Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co., No. 03-17125, 2008 U.S. App. LEXIS 6135 (9th Cir., March 25, 2008), in which the court discussed the evidence required to apportion CERCLA liability between two potentially responsible parties that used different portions of the same contaminated site.

Risk Financing features revisions in two sections in the manual. First, the discussion on the European captive insurance market is updated. Section IV.J, "The European Captive Scene," describes the captive insurance industry in Europe. Updates are also included for section VII.B, "Evaluating Alternative Risk Financing Options"; section VII.C, "Negotiating and Comparing Alternative Risk Financing Programs"; and section VII.D, "Case Studies." Supplement 98’s issue of Risk Financing Perspectives features a discussion on the approach to insuring hurricane damage adopted by the state of Florida. The discussion titled, "Florida Flirting with Hurricane Insurance Disaster," is authored by Brent Winans, Vice President of Risk Management Services for the Plastridge Agency in Delray Beach, Florida. Also in this month’s Perspectives is our regular "Market Corner" column, which provides quarterly updates on current property and casualty insurance market conditions.

RMIS Review adds a new section, Vendor News, and the following vendor RMIS evaluations have been updated:

Forms

This month 208 forms and endorsements have been added to the Forms manuals. These include new state-specific general liability, state-specific businessowners, and state-specific medical professional liability forms. The Forms manuals now include more than 20,555 sample policy forms.