Pandemic Risk Insurance Act and the Future of Business Interruption Insurance

New York Partner Zachary Lerner authored an article for PropertyCasualty360 discussing the possibility of a Pandemic Risk Insurance Act (PRIA) to minimize the disruption to insurance markets due to COVID-19 by capping the total insurance losses that insurance companies may face. The PRIA, he noted, would be modeled after the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) passed in the wake of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. A draft is currently being reviewed by Congress, which would apply to any insurance company licensed in any U.S. state, territory or possession, as well as any insurance company eligible to write insurance in the U.S. on a surplus lines basis, including non-U.S. insurance companies listed on the Quarterly Listing of Alien Insurers of the NAIC, Lerner explained.

“The PRIA Discussion Draft very closely mirrors TRIA and requires participating insurers to ‘make available’ insurance coverage for a ‘covered public health emergency,’ which includes ‘any outbreak of infectious ‎disease or pandemic’ on terms that do not differ materially from the terms applicable to losses ‎arising from other events,” Lerner writes.

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