PIA National CEO Mike Becker speaks with Brad Lachut, director of government
and industry affairs for PIA Northeast, about coverages that come into play with the
COVID-19 outbreak.
PIA National has recently been sending out regular communications under this
title, "PIA Working for You". If you have not been receiving these and want to be
included in those emails to keep you up-to-date with national news related to the
pandemic, please email jody@piaoflouisiana.com
to make sure you're added to that email list. To recap some of the information that
has been sent in the most recent communications, click
here.
On April 3, 2020, the Louisiana Department of Insurance promulgated Amended Emergency
Rule 40 — Moratorium on Policy Cancellations and Non-Renewals for Policyholders
in Louisiana during the Outbreak of Coronavirus Disease. That change has now been reverted
and the corrected version of the rule is available
here. To see the main change that was
made pertaining to premium insurance companies, click
here for a comparison of the two versions.
U.S. auto insurers will
return more than $10 billion to their customers nationwide,
according to an estimate released on April 11 by the Insurance Information
Institute (Triple-I). The Triple-I's $10.5 billion estimate is a projection based on
its analysis of 14 U.S. auto insurers who cited reduced policyholder mileage and the
receipt of fewer claims amid the COVID-19 crisis as the reasons they were able to
announce premium refunds, discounts, dividends, and credits.
"Insurers are again fulfilling their role as economic first responders by
providing financial relief to customers when they need it most," said Sean
Kevelighan, CEO, Triple-I.
PIA has announced it strenuously opposes legislation introduced separately by
Reps. Mike Thompson (D-CA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA) that would empower the
federal government to rewrite existing business interruption (BI) insurance
provisions drafted with otherwise applicable exclusions.
"PIA is deeply engaged in wide-ranging efforts to assist the business community
during this national crisis. Unfortunately, these two bills would apply business
interruption coverage where it doesn't exist, exacerbating existing disruptions
and further delaying our nation's economic recovery," said PIA National Executive
Vice President & CEO Mike Becker.
BI provisions typically do not cover losses resulting from risks like the
coronavirus. Retroactively rewriting contracts undermines existing contractual
relationships and risks injecting new uncertainties into our current economic
crisis. Such proposals purport to quickly provide assistance to businesses in
need, but in reality, such a response would not help all businesses; only one
in three small businesses even has business interruption coverage. As such,
only a small percentage of businesses would benefit in any way from it, and
thousands of small businessowners would be left struggling.
Florida's U.S. senators have called on the federal government to issue guidelines
on how states should handle evacuations and storm shelters in the event of a
hurricane, in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
With less than two months to go until the tropics reach the conditions that forecasters
expect will generate an
above-average storm season, government officials and local
politicians are rushing to prepare for what Broward County Mayor Dale Holness described
as a "double disaster" of a hurricane strike amid a COVID-19 outbreak.
As the global pandemic of COVID-19 continues to affect the way we do business,
PIA is highlighting specific programs that may be useful to you right now. We hope
this is helpful.
Why care about this now? During this pandemic, we are finding ourselves at home
working remotely for an indefinite amount of time. Computer hackers can use this time
to deploy aggressive ransomware attacks, and sophisticated social engineering scams
to try and trick you into divulging sensitive information. It's important to know what
to look out for so that you don't become a victim of a cybercrime; more importantly,
if you know what to look out for, you can also help educate your clients to their
vulnerabilities.
What is it? Free to PIA members, Cyber 101 is an educational series that informs
you about the seven most common cyber risks that can affect small to medium-sized
businesses. The seven most common risks are:
Social engineering
Funds transfer fraud
Ransomware/extortion
Network interruption
Data breach
Network security
Media liability
This educational series includes 30-minute webinars covering each risk, informational PDFs,
and interactive claims examples. We've also created customizable cyber education flyers that
you can share with your clients online and on social media.
You may also be interested in protecting your agency with PIA Cyber Insurance or offering
PIA Cyber Insurance to your clients. You may also contact Natalie
Cooper directly to assist you with markets available to your agency.
