London market puts Israeli airlines on notice to review coverage
Select London underwriters are suspending coverage to Israeli airlines to review terms as the conflict with Hamas escalates but have yet to take any blanket action towards international carriers, a top LMA official told Intelligent Insurer.
A notice of cancellation “is being issued for domiciled Israel operations by leading underwriters to reassess & review terms,” the secretary of the LMA's Joint War Committee, Neil Roberts, told Intelligent Insurer.
No such notices of cancellation have yet been issued for international airlines operating scheduled flights into Israel, although reports abound of airlines cancelling all flights to and from Israel or, as Roberts noted, reducing their exposure to a single flight in Israeli airspace at a time.
Underwriters are being advised of all humanitarian flights for evacuation, as those are not part of scheduled operations and constitute a material change in coverage terms, he noted.
If the United Nation’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) advises that such flights are no longer safe or if Israel closes its airspace, “all flights will cease,” Roberts said.
The LMA has not issued any formal guidance to members, such as the “listed areas” which require insured notification to underwriters, a step which Roberts notes is “not normally done.”
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