NU Online News Service, Sept. 8, 12:25 p.m. EDT

A Mississippi senator withdrew his amendment to flood-insurance reauthorization legislation that would have terminated the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act in 2013, a year earlier than authorized in 2007 legislation.

Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., withdrew his amendment, reported yesterday by NU Online News Service, during a Senate Banking Committee debate on the flood reauthorization measure today after asking Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., if he would discuss with him at some later date his concerns about the program.

An insurance-industry lobbyist says the Wicker decision to withdraw the amendment was not unexpected because it was likely to be voted down by a large margin if he had persisted.

But the lobbyist says, "The Wicker proposal was a wakeup call for the industry to gear up quickly if we want this program to be continued past 2014."

Clifton Rodgers, Jr., senior vice president of the Real Estate Roundtable, which lobbied for the TRIA legislation in 2002 and for its seven-year renewal in 2007, says his group, which represents commercial-property owners, was "pleased to learn" that Wicker "prudently decided" not to propose his amendment to the Flood Insurance Reform and Modernization Act of 2011.

He notes, "We are marking this week the 10h anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania. Yet terrorism remains a very real threat to our nation."

He adds, "TRIA is an economic first-responder in a terrorist attack. It protects our businesses and our jobs and shields the taxpayer from a significant cost should an attack occur. Terrorism is not aimed at a specific business or property owner; it is aimed at our nation and our way of life."

Wicker says he proposed the amendment because "terrorism insurance is an important product for many across our country, but a private market may be better suited to insure against these risks rather than a government program."

Just last month, Guy Carpenter, the reinsurance broker subsidiary or Marsh & McLennan Companies, issued a new report on the issue which says that while acts of global terrorism peaked in 2006, at more than 14,400, acts of terrorism "still remain at historically high levels at more than 10,000 in 2010 alone.

Moreover, the report says that while terrorism risk insurance is currently "abundant" in the marketplace, "due to its unpredictable nature, insurers and reinsurers [continue to] struggle to quantify its risk."

Special Reports /

Wicker Withdraws TRIA-Repeal Amendment Today, But Asks for Future Discussions

Related Stories

Recommended For You