When National Underwriter editors contacted roughly a dozen participants in the excess and surplus lines market late last year, we didn't anticipate that a flood of responses would turn into a two-part feature.

However, when short descriptions started pouring in–like “a river float boat full of nuns from a convent” and “the Great American Bigfoot Research Organization–we had to ask for more details to fill in the “what,” “why” and “how,” leaving us no choice but to expand our feature over the course of two weeks.

Still, we haven't given you everything–and we know there are more stories just waiting to be told. As was the case last week, we attempt here to present the best examples that answered the question of “how”–demonstrating the ability of the market to respond with unique solutions, rather than limiting our focus to the wildest risk descriptions we received.

Proving they'll insure almost anything that moves, insurers and brokers submitted more than a dozen examples of risks that don't stay in one place. And in one case, an insurance policy for a moving risk earned frequent flyer miles for an insured, according to Chris Behymer, a vice president for Markel Southwest in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Giving some background, he said an organization was selling three buildings for $1. The only caveat was that the buyer had to move them about a mile away.

The insured was the contractor hired to take up the buildings–a house, a garage and an outbuilding–and to reposition them and prepare them for occupancy at the new location, he said.

“We weren't insuring injury that might result from the actual transport of the buildings,” which would be covered under a separate auto policy, “but while the home was being jacked up,” he explained. Clarifying the coverage further, he noted that during the time period when the buildings are being lifted, there's a nuisance hazard at the site, with potential claims to people coming on the premises and being injured.

While Mr. Behymer didn't view this type of house-moving exposure as particularly unique–although it's difficult enough to land it in the E&S market–the real challenge was the fact that the insured wanted to pay for the policy using his credit card so he could earn frequent flyer miles.

“Our particular agent did not have an account set up with Visa, MasterCard or American Express, but he did have a PayPal account through eBay,” he said, adding that because that account has a transaction limit, the agent actually had to run three transactions to get this done.

Ultimately, the agent was responsible for processing costs of roughly $700, he said, noting that Markel worked with the agent to modify the premium and policy fees to recoup some of that cost.

A moving building was also at the center of another unique risk scenario from Markel–this one courtesy of John Grossenbacher, vice president of the ocean marine division of Markel's Essex Insurance Company, who described first-party coverage for a homeowner who needed a 1906 home moved from an island in Massachusetts to the mainland.

“It was very close to a shoreline that was eroding. They had to do something or lose the house,” he said.

From the insurer's perspective, he said one thing an underwriter needed to be concerned with in putting together insuring terms was that it wouldn't end up paying “for a crack in the wall put there in the 1930s.” The terms had to be named-perils, and there had to be a marine surveyor on site “to make sure the lifting capacity of everything was correct,” he said.

Essex also insured a risk moving much farther–a Soviet non-nuclear submarine had to be towed from Tampa, Fla., to Halifax, Nova Scotia, for the making of the movie “K-19.” The vessel, renovated to look like a nuclear missile sub, starred Harrison Ford in the tale of a Soviet Navy crew's efforts to repair problems that could lead to a nuclear meltdown.

Mr. Grossenbacher explained that the insured in this instance was a New Zealand-based contractor in charge of all aspects of the film that dealt with water. While the insurance didn't cover bodily injury for the actors (who were covered under different contractual arrangements), there was injury coverage for some boat operators, along with coverage for all the hulls–including a Canadian destroyer and a prop barge used during filming.

“When you saw Harrison Ford out scanning the horizon from the conning tower of the submarine, he was actually standing on a fiberglass platform built on top of a barge,” he said, noting that cameras also sat on the barge to record the action.

Taken together, the insured values were probably $3 million, he said. “We had a fairly high deductible, but the key to it was the folks who were in charge,” he noted, adding that the contractor had vast experience with waterborne exposures and made sure everything was tied down.

Off the silver screen, Jeff Hayes, a casualty broker for CRC Insurance Services in Atlanta, and Tim Kyser, lead underwriter for First Specialty, a unit of GE Insurance Solutions, described insurance for faster movers.

Mr. Hayes writes general liability and liquor liability for an indoor go-cart race track facility that serves alcohol, and auto liability for a truck driving school. For the race track, he noted the GL policy only covers injuries to spectators. “The insured has a separate participant accident policy that we don't write,” he said.

With loss control measures in place for both risks, Mr. Hayes reported that there have been no claims for either the racing facility or the truck driving school. “The go-carts are limited to a maximum of 5 horsepower. At the truck driving school, every student is accompanied by an instructor for any open-road driving,” he said, adding a certain amount of desk- and site-training at the school is required before any student is allowed on an open-road exercise.

Describing liability coverage for a New York bicycle courier service, Mr. Kyser also stressed the safety initiatives to explain how First Specialty got comfortable with the risk. While such couriers typically have a reputation for speeding recklessly through Manhattan traffic, this one–with a fleet of 120 couriers–had a proven track record after eight years in business, and an aggressive approach to safety training, he said.

In addition to documented lectures, videos and a safety incentive program, Mr. Kyser noted there was also a program for maintaining and inspecting the bikes, adding that no claims have been reported under the policy.

“The broker I wrote this with sent me another one” with similar exposures but several large losses, he said, noting that to write that second one, the insurer will put reduced limits and a higher deductible on the policy, as well as mandate that a loss control program be put in place mirroring that of its safer counterpart.

At Essex Insurance, Mr. Grossenbacher described coverage for a transportation risk that no longer moves–the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Midway, which is now operated by a nonprofit group as a museum. “The Navy requires the organization taking over ownership to carry $2 million in hull coverage and $1 million in liability,” he noted.

Providing an example of a further coverage limitation, he said that if there's a fire damaging an engine room that no tourist would ever see, that wouldn't be covered. While there's only $2 million of property coverage, the replacement cost of the carrier could be as high as $3 billion. To eliminate a large insurance-to-replacement cost value differential, covered areas are limited to those the public can see, he explained.

Still, in spite of the fact that the Midway is now docked, “this one didn't turn out too well” from a claims perspective, he said. “Aircraft carriers and military boats have lots of things to stumble over….If you're navy personnel, you walk around it, but if you're a tourist, you may not see that place where they used to tie down airplanes or the bump where they used to have a gun turret.”

“We had those kinds of losses, which you would not expect in a normal museum situation,” before the organization running the museum started to put up ropes and mark off walkways to prevent such incidents.

Unusual because it came up twice among the unique risks submitted to NU was the category of coverage for traveling members of the clergy. From Mr. Grossenbacher came the description of “a river float boat full of nuns” from a convent.

He explained that the five “floating nuns” were commemorating the founding of a convent and school in Kentucky by a priest who took a river trip down the Ohio River by a float boat until he reached the convent.

“There actually was a claim,” he said. The nuns would stop in small towns along the way, allowing people to board and give donations, and an overweight woman stumbled and injured herself on one of the stopovers, Mr. Grossenberger reported. He noted, however, that the claim against the church was later withdrawn.

Meanwhile, Dave McDermid, an underwriting vice president at Scottsdale Insurance, said his company writes a “traveling clergy big rig” for race car circuits. The tractor trailer allows ministers to travel to the sites of races and to hold Sunday services for race car drivers before they compete, he noted.

Scottsdale also provides liability coverage to The Great American Bigfoot Research organization, a group attempting to find the elusive creature in Northern California. “They put up a camera in the forest and people can log onto their Web site to see if he's out there lurking around,” Mr. McDermid said.

He explained that the group is required to have liability coverage by the American Forestry Department–in case someone trips over camera equipment set up in the forest, for example.

Special Reports /

'Flood Of Unique Risks Tests Markets Mettle

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