Trades Urge Cost Lid For Asbestos Fund Measure

Trades Urge Cost Lid For Asbestos Fund Measure

By Steven Brostoff, Washington Editor

NU Online News Service, July 8, 1:28 p.m. EDT, Washington?Three leading trade associations are urging the senators negotiating asbestos legislation details to assure that the cost of the legislation does not get out of hand.

In a joint letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the Alliance of American Insurers, the National Association of Independent Insurers and the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies said that there must be finality and certainty in the legislation.

The letter came after the Judiciary Committee agreed last week to an amendment that increased funding for what was originally a $108 billion trust fund to resolve asbestos-related claims to some $153 billion.

In addition, insurance companies and asbestos defendants could be assessed up to $1 billion a year each if the fund runs out of money before all claimants are paid.

Joe Manero, a representative of the Downers Grove, Ill.-based Alliance of American Insurers, said that the legislation must not become a blank check for Alliance members. It must not become an open-ended pot of money.

The letter the three associations sent to Sen. Hatch, Mr. Manero noted, is conciliatory in tone and stresses their desire to work with all members of the Committee in order to forge a compromise.

Georgiann Howell, a representative of the Indianapolis-based NAMIC, said that the legal system should fairly compensate those who have been truly injured by asbestos.

But she noted that the potential industry liabilities in the legislation are so substantial that some small mutual insurance companies could be put out of business.

Anne Sittmann, a representative of the Des Plaines, Ill.-based National Association of Independent Insurers, added that NAII is concerned about the allocation process, involving how much each company must contribute to the fund.

The allocation, she said, must equitably distribute liability between insurers and reinsurers based on exposure to asbestos-related loss in order to avoid cross-subsidization, Ms. Sittmann said.

In addition, she said, there must be a limit to the liability of each company.

Ms. Howell said that the recent changes to the bill definitely make it less attractive to insurance companies. Insurers, she said, could end up opposing the bill, but they do not want that to be the end result.