Monte Carlo 2023 Coverage
September 11, 2023: In the face of rising litigation, how is the industry managing liability exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)? That is the question posed in The Insurers latest coverage from Monte Carlo.
Our own Adam Grossman joins the discussion, and the article covers a lot of interesting ground as it how the industry is responding to the complexity of PFAS as an evolving risk. The article touches on the uncertainty of just how many substances belong to the harmful chemical family, the testing methodology of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the absence of a PFAS “signatory’ disease as a few of the characteristics that make PFAS such a challenging risk.
The article also considers the lessons we might learn from asbestos, like how the reactionary tactic of introducing exclusions in response to litigation might not be the best approach for the thoughtful and savvy insurer – that a forward-looking science-based approach is the stronger strategy for success.
Link to Full Article
“Insurers need to be thinking about this from the basis of exposure to these latent risks. Understand what past risks are in your book now, how that relates to ongoing premiums and reserves, and then figure out what pricing you need to make those contracts sustainable. It’s not necessarily uninsurable full stop.” – Adam Grossman, Vice President of emerging risk and modelling and senior scientist at Praedicat