LMA publishes cyber property and marine clauses to aid market clarity

The Lloyd's Market Association has published a number of clauses for the property and marine markets to help clarify cyber cover under first-party property damage policies and to start to address the issue of silent cyber in policies.

Clauses include property D&F cyber endorsement, property D&F cyber exclusion, marine cyber exclusion and marine cyber endorsement.

However, while the clauses offer clarity, the LMA included a caveat statement signed by Patrick Davison, deputy director of underwriting, which said: “All model clauses published by the LMA are purely illustrative and are distributed for the guidance of its members, who are free to agree to different conditions or amend as they see fit.

“The LMA does not publish written guidelines with regard to application or intent of any specific contractual terms (unless use of such contractual terms would constitute a breach or potential breach of any law or regulation) and the LMA therefore cannot release any clause drafting history.

"The LMA (including all panels and working groups, which may include Joint Committees in conjunction with the International Underwriting Association) in drafting such clauses operates under strict terms of reference to ensure, amongst other things, compliance with Competition Law and it is for underwriters to decide whether or not any contractual language is acceptable on any given risk.”

The LMA will publish further line-of-business-specific model clauses in the coming weeks.