Protecting Main Street businesses from future pandemics will require a fully federally funded, affordable base layer of coverage, writes David Sampson of the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), Charles Chamness of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (NAMIC), and Bob Rusbuldt of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America (IIABA) in a new op-ed for Morning Consult.
Here are a few highlights from the article:
- The time to discuss insurance solutions to future pandemics is now. “While more financial assistance is needed in the short term, policymakers and the business community also need to establish a program to provide financial protection for businesses from future viral outbreaks and pandemics.”
- Insurers are committed to finding risk solutions for customers, but pandemic risks defy insurability. “Private insurance is built on the premise that a small percentage of those paying in for a given year will experience a loss, and the universal nature of a pandemic makes it, by definition, uninsurable. Insurers do not have the scale or ability to adjust tens or hundreds of millions of simultaneous, complex insurance claims.”
- The federal government’s involvement is key to helping all businesses recover and re-open. “Forcing insurers to absorb the losses for an inherently uninsurable risk, even at just a percentage of the losses, would be unaffordable for most businesses, particularly on Main Street… It is critical that Congress enacts a program that works for all stakeholders, large and small, and provides the economic security that our country needs.”
The insurance industry experts from APCIA, IIABA, and NAMIC also highlighted the Business Continuity Protection Program (BCPP), which, along with the Pandemic Risk Insurance Act (PRIA) and the Pandemic Business Interruption Program, is one of few proposed policies for federally funded pandemic relief. Read more on the industry’s recommended principles for proposed policies here.
You can read the full op-ed here. For more information and resources, visit fairinsure.org.
