Totus Re is fully supportive of the Pandemic Re steering group but it does not go far enough. In our rush to treat the symptom we need to make sure we don’t fall into the trap of simply adding a pandemic silo to the government’s ad-hoc architecture of guarantees and backstops in a game of endless whack-a-mole.
• Now is the time for the government and the industry to act boldly and co-create a multi-peril, state-backed reinsurance overarching entity
• Nobody can afford for us to wait for the next systemic event to strike and reveal another ruinous coverage gap
• Government needs to understand the power and role that the insurance industry can play in mitigating and financing systemic risk
• Totus Re a safety mechanism in support of economic recovery
LONDON (25/06/20) – Totus Re urges the UK government and insurance industry to consider the whole panoply of perils catalogued by the National Risk Register rather than focusing solely on pandemic risk.
Commercial insurance will only ever be able to support a small, societally sub-optimal sliver of the risks on the National Risk Register, resulting in a ‘Society Insurance Gap’.
These perils range from emerging cyber risks to the risks associated with extreme natural hazards and climate change, rightly considered ‘uninsurable’ in the tail, but partially insurable if equitably supported by the state.
Totus Re is aiming to make a specific intervention in our industry’s response. Namely, to advocate for a public-private arrangement which addresses chronic underinsurance and low resilience against a range of catastrophic perils in the UK, rather than the isolated symptom – the risk from pandemics – from which we are all currently reeling.
Co-Founder Liz Foster says: “Thinking about pandemic risk as part of a broader universe of systemic risks facing society is not to say that Covid-19 does not present urgent and unprecedented challenges.
“As such, we are wholly supportive of the ‘Pandemic Re’ steering group established by Stephen Catlin. We are encouraged by the prospect of the industry uniting behind a single proposal to bring to government.
“Broadly, our aims are complementary: a partnership with the state to enable (re)insurers to viably ensure that the products businesses will need to successfully weather the next national crisis, are available and affordable.”
Please direct media enquiries to:
Katherine Mitchell
Marketing Services Director, Brandon Consulting Services
Direct Dial: +44 7917 855 881
Email: Katmitchell552@gmail.com
http://www.brandonconsultingservices.co.uk
About Totus Re
Totus Re is open collective to help the insurance sector and government better plan coverage for any catastrophic pan-economic event. It is the brainchild of Liz Foster, Non-Executive Director of The Society of Insurance Broking, and James York, Founder at Innovative Risk.
Totus Re is not political and is not embarked on with profit motive. It is a collective effort to open a dialogue and close the Society Insurance Gap.
The aim of the collective is to close this gap, and created certainty for the market, for the government, and all insured UK businesses. Certainty creates confidence – in our economy and our ability to endure the risks our society inevitably faces in the course of natural time.
Join the collective at http://www.TotusRe.com
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