Commercial Lines

In today’s lending environment, nearly all small and midsize business owners sign a personal guarantee to secure bank financing. This uncomfortable reality—putting a house and other personal assets at risk—can now be mitigated with a new insurance product: personal guarantee insurance.

New rules that expose executives and directors of troubled financial-services institutions to unexpected negative consequences—including the possible loss of their salaries and other compensation—have sparked the creation a new insurance coverage.

When Southwest Airlines closed its $1 billion-plus deal to buy AirTran two weeks ago, it did so knowing that language of a tail-coverage endorsement it bought for AirTrans directors and officers would synch up with a worrisome provision of the merger indemnification agreement.

With new coverages evolving and the SEC setting its sights on increased enforcement activities, specialty insurance coverage for regulatory investigations is a hot topic among buyers and sellers of management liability insurance. Brokers assess the options and price trends.

For public companies navigating the continuing fallout from the global financial meltdown, dealing with regulatory investigations is about as inevitable as death and taxes. D&O insurance products are evolving to cover some of the costs.

After initial fear that tax-sharing agreements of surplus-lines taxes could be doomed, there is new optimism that the vast majority of states will enter into some arrangement.

After initial fear that tax-sharing agreements of surplus-lines taxes could be doomed, there is new optimism that the vast majority of states will enter into some arrangement.

A prominent New York attorney known as the "Queen of Torts" for her defense of top companies like State Farm is tackling a vastly different job — running the $2.78 billion fund to compensate ground zero workers and others who say they were sickened by the Sept. 11, 2001, terror...