January 23rd, 2020: In their first Carrier Management piece of 2020 Robert Reville, CEO; Melissa Boudreau, VP of Modeling and Chief Actuary; and Adam Grossman, Senior Scientist at Praedicat explore SMEs new predicament: duty to defend catastrophes.
“Insurers that thought they were safe from mass tort claims because they focused on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as insureds are facing an ugly surprise: a trio of factors that is creating a “duty to defend” catastrophes, according to experts at Praedicat. Here, they note that litigation funding, suits implicating product retailers and distributors, and science that links chemical exposures and developmental injuries in children could easily create mass actions involving more than the 8,000-plus defendants for asbestos litigation, with major SME insurers footing defense billions for hundreds of these companies.”