NAPSLO Seeks TRIA Changes
Indian Wells, Calif.
A major wholesaler group would not welcome an extension of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act without significant changes.
Indeed, as the bill now stands, insurance wholesalers believe the programs administrative and document overhead is too "costly" compared to the amount of coverage it extends, Richard Bouhan, executive director of the Kansas City, Mo.-based National Association of Professional Surplus Lines Offices, Ltd., told the National Underwriter.
"We just have a problem with this," he said in an interview here during NAPSLOs 19th annual midyear educational workshop. "We realize there are some problems in the area of workers compensation and with some of the life people, where they have some [exposure] concentrations, and there may be some areas in urban America where there are some centers that need to be dealt with because they are so vulnerable to terrorist attack, but they should deal with those issues exclusively and take the rest of us out of it."
Mr. Bouhan emphasized that at NAPSLO, "we are not opposing all of TRIA. We are not actively opposing it. We have indicated to [U.S.] Treasury [Department] officials, and some others, our problems and concerns, and that [we feel] it should not be extended in its present form."
From a personal standpoint, Mr. Bouhan said he was taken aback when the industry agreed to allow the federal government to mandate insurance coverage through TRIA, requiring all insurers to offer terrorism coverage to commercial accounts in return for federal reinsurance coverage.
"In one fell swoop, the industry allowed the government to regulate our forms," he said. "This is not a natural position. It was breathtaking to me that that would occur, and that the industry was so willing to allow Congress to regulate the forms. I think it is something the industry may not really wish to see continue."
Reproduced from National Underwriter Edition, February 25, 2005. Copyright 2005 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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