Marsh and Aon argue for TRIA renewal

Brokers Marsh & McLennan and Aon Benfield have indicated their support for renewal of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA).

In his testimony before congress executive vice president and general counsel of Marsh Peter Beshar said: “we consider TRIA to be a model public-private partnership. TRIA restored insurance capacity at a critical time after 9-11 and continues to be the backbone of a healthy terrorism insurance market. In our judgement, the existence of a private terrorism insurance market, backstopped by TRIA, actually serves to protect the government and taxpayers from absorbing virtually all of the financial loss in the event of a terrorist attack.”

Ed Ryan, a senior managing director with Aon Benfield, said: “the main hurdle in assessing and underwriting terrorism risk is that the frequency of loss from terrorism is neither predictable nor random. Therefore, terrorism insurance is unlike any other marketplace risk. The uncertainty surrounding terror risk makes insurance coverage unique and this requires a novel approach.”