Liberty Mutual Sells Global Warming Liability Insurance

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NEW YORK - While many Directors and Officers (D&O) policies cover pollution claims, most of these policies do not specifically reference global warming. To help eliminate much of the uncertainty about global warming exposure, Liberty International Underwriters (LIU), a part of Liberty Mutual Group, has created the Private Advantage Company Combo™ policy. This policy responds to global warming litigation and features many of the D&O coverage enhancements most requested by brokers including assured quote for future public offerings and third-party coverage via endorsement.

LIU's Private Advantage Company Combo™ is a highly competitive private company policy that offers broad private company management coverage for D&O liability, employment practices liability (EPL), fiduciary liability, pollution defense and standard ISO crime fidelity. It includes a broad definition of EPL wrongful act, claim and insured person as well as a broad definition of claim and loss for fiduciary liability.

"Private company executives have grown increasingly concerned about global warming litigation but until now had no options for special coverage," said Carl Pursiano, senior vice president of LIU's U.S. management liability operations. "With a number of lower court cases already pending on greenhouse gas emissions, D&Os need global warming defense-cost insurance. We saw this coverage gap and created a policy to help protect executives from this new wave of litigation stemming from the alleged improper release of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases."

Since Private Advantage has been designed as a modular policy, brokers can configure its coverage options into a wide variety of combinations. The policy allows clients to start with a basic D&O policy and then add to it the coverage enhancements that best suit their exposure. For example, the Combo policy can provide pollution claim protection such as:

• Side A pollution derivative suit coverage;
• Pollution defense-cost coverage, inclusive of entity coverage and global warming protection;
• Private placement protection including defense-cost coverage for global warming-related misrepresentations; and
• Defense-cost coverage associated with formal administrative or regulatory investigative proceedings against insured persons with respect to global warming.

(h/t Church of Global Warming)