What's New—January 2009

Five 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 January issue of The Risk Report, "Managing Corporate Risks from Cell Phone Perils" by Kevin Quinley, outlines the importance of addressing the intelligent use of cell phones in risk management programs.

The January issue of Captive Insurance Company Reports (CICR) begins with "Insurance Outlook: 2009," which presents financial highlights of the insurance industry for 2008, with some prognostications for 2009. "Captives and Their Service Providers" outlines how service providers should be selected. Finally, we overview the recent World Captive Forum.

Reference Manuals

Commercial Property Insurance begins the process of addressing the changes made in the 2007-edition ISO commercial property forms, which became available for use in most jurisdictions as of November 1, 2008. It provides updated annotated policy form discussions of the building and personal property coverage form (CP 00 10) and the special causes of loss form (CP 10 30), plus specimen copies of the 2007 editions of the building and personal property coverage form and all three causes of loss forms (CP 10 10, CP 10 20, and CP 10 30).

Contractual Risk Transfer updates the discussion of additional insureds under workers compensation insurance (section XI.G), issues raised by dual and joint employment, and the proper use of the alternative employer endorsement. (This update complements the update of employee leasing issues in contractual risk transfer provided in Supplement #51.) This supplement also includes an expanded discussion (section XI.C) of problems associated with the use of standard automatic ("blanket") additional insured endorsements. Issues involving the standard requirement that a request for additional insured status be contained in a written contract, and the necessity of making certain that contract language insurance requirements are specific as to the coverages under which insured status is being sought, are discussed and illustrated with pertinent caselaw.

Pollution Coverage Issues added 34 new cases to the chart on post-1986 pollution exclusions. Additionally, a new table of statistics has been added to give you a rough estimate of the chances of success when an insurer asserts a post-1986 pollution exclusion in a given claim scenario. (See the bulletin for more information.) IRMI's Environmental Insurance Reporter examines cases expressing a common law rule that a substance must be "acting as a pollutant" before a post-1986 pollution exclusion bars coverage for a claim.

Professional Liability Insurance features a revision of the fiduciary liability exposures section (XII.C). Since this section was last updated, the liability exposures of fiduciaries have continued to expand. A combination of court decisions, new federal legislation, and the current recession have combined to create new causes of action for plaintiffs. These, as well as other developments impacting the liability exposures of fiduciaries, are addressed. In addition, the Topical Index is also updated.

Practical Risk Management updates three topics concerning the broker/client relationship. Broker Selection (A-7) addresses services to look for, how to develop a list of firms to consider, key steps in the broker selection process, methods of selecting the firm to use, and broker compensation. Topic A-8 expands on this discussion by looking at what duties are owed to a client by the broker. Broker Compensation (Topic A-18) discusses how brokers should be compensated and reviews different models that can be used. This supplement’s issue of Risk Management Notes summarizes the results of a number of surveys that have been released in the last 3 months. Reviewing these results can be valuable in planning risk management strategies and setting realistic expectations. "Marketplace Musings" looks at the state of the insurance market.

Other Updates

The "State-by-State Chart: CGL Coverage for Defective Work," (found in Insurance for Defective Construction), which provides a graphical national summary map showing how the caselaw has developed and state-by-state summaries of the most frequently cited cases on insurance coverage for defective construction, has been updated to reflect recent state changes and court decisions. Author Pat Wielinski closely monitors this section of the law and periodically updates this appendix in the electronic versions of the book to keep it current.

New Editions

IRMI Insurance Checklists 2009 provides 58 checklists for reviewing the coverage provisions of personal and commercial lines insurance policies. All the checklists have been updated to consider forms changes implemented since last year.  The checklists are presented in Word documents which you can download, save, fill out, and customize. If you subscribe to this publication on IRMI Online, you now have access to the new edition. Learn more about Insurance Checklists...

Forms

The ACORD Forms manual has been updated (thru Dec 2008) with new and revised forms. The ACORD Forms manual now includes more than 625 forms.