President Bush Pushes For Consensus On Terrorism Insurance
Washington
President George W. Bush last week pressed Congress to develop a consensus terrorism insurance bill.
At a White House meeting with Congressional leaders on Sept. 30, the President said it is important for Congress to get a terrorism insurance bill done before it adjourns for the year.
President Bush said that over $15.5 billion worth of construction projects are not moving forward because insurance is not available. That means that 300,000 people who should be working on these projects are not employed, he noted.
President Bush said that he and the Congressional representatives had a good discussion about how Congress and the administration can work together to get a bill done. He said he had asked Congressional leaders on terrorism insurance to try to get an agreement by Friday, Oct. 4, after this edition went to press. (For an update on any agreement, check the NU "Hot News" Web site at NationalUnderwriter.com.)
Members of the Senate attending the meeting were Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.; Richard Shelby, R-Ala.; Phil Gramm, R-Texas; Mike Enzi, R-Wy.; Paul Sarbanes, D-Md.; and Jack Reed, R-R.I. House members attending included Reps. Mike Oxley, R-Ohio; James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.; Richard Baker, R-La.; John LaFalce, D-N.Y.; John Conyers, D-Mich.; and Paul Kanjorski, D-Pa.
In addition, the President was scheduled to meet with insurance and other business executives at the White House after this edition went to press to push for passage of a terrorism insurance bill.
House and Senate conferees have been working to iron out differences between strikingly different versions of terrorism insurance legislation.
The House approach, H.R. 3210, is a loan program under which insurance companies that suffer terrorism-related losses could seek federal assistance in terms of loans, which would have to be repaid over several years.
The Senate approach, S. 2600, is a quota-share plan under which the federal government would pay up to 90 percent of terrorism-related losses, subject to an industrywide and company-by-company retention level.
In addition, while H.R. 3210 contains strict tort reforms, including a bar on punitive damages assessed against U.S. businesses, S. 2600 contains only procedural reforms.
Reproduced from National Underwriter Property & Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, October 7, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.
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