Washington–An insurance trade group official said at a symposiumon terrorism last week that her industry will be hurt if theTerrorism Risk Insurance Act is not extended.

"The U.S. economy will suffer if a federal public/privatepartnership to insure against catastrophic terrorist attacks is notin place to continue beyond Dec. 31, when the Terrorism RiskInsurance Act (TRIA) expires," said Debra Ballen, executive vicepresident of the Washington-based American InsuranceAssociation.

Her comments came as a key Treasury Department report on TRIAwas expected to be released at any moment. The report mandated byCongress concerns whether the act, which provides a federalbackstop for foreign terrorism risk, has fulfilled itsfunction.

The report must be released by Thursday but neither the WhiteHouse nor the Treasury Department has given any hints as to when itwill be made public.

Congress is awaiting the report as a signal of whether the Bushadministration will support an extension, as the industry desires,and the shape and scope such an extension should take, if any.

Ms. Ballen made her comments at a national symposium on thefuture of terrorism risk insurance sponsored by the RAND Corp. Thesymposium was held at the University of Southern California in LosAngeles.

At the meeting, RAND officials released a report–"TerrorismInsurance and the Evolving Terrorist Threat"–which calls for anadequate public/private partnership to insure against terror, anational security issue because terrorists are likely to targetvital institutions in the U.S. economy.

The report explained that insurance is needed to compensatevictims, sustain business operations during a disruption, andrebuild damaged assets and infrastructure.

The RAND study presented at the symposium concluded that along-term solution to providing terrorism insurance in the UnitedStates must address chemical, biological, radiation and nuclear(CBRN) attacks as well as attacks by domestic groups.

The report called for the extension of TRIA to protect againstdomestic attacks and said CBRN attacks pose "significantchallenges" for insurance and may be appropriately covered througha direct government program.

Other suggestions included in the report called for thefollowing:

o Considering mandatory requirements for companies that own oroperate systems vital to the functioning of U.S. criticalinfrastructure to carry adequate levels of insurance.

o Conducting further research on the ability of insurance toprompt increased security in the private sector.

o Establishing an oversight board to review TRIA or itssuccessor's performance and "ensure that it is robust to changes inthe underlying risk."