New Triple-I Initiative Offers Resource on Insurance and Pandemic

The Insurance Information Institute (Triple-I) has launched an initiative aimed at providing an educational resource for news media, the business community, and the broader public with regard to developments involving insurance and the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a statement, the Triple-I said the Future of American Insurance & Reinsurance (FAIR) campaign "will focus on ensuring the insurance industry is able to sustain its longstanding role as the country's backbone of economic growth and stability."

As communities and businesses reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, insurers will play a critical role in the process, providing financial protection for insurance buyers "for indemnification from risks they rightfully insured," the Triple-I said. "Yet the industry is threatened with growing calls to retroactively alter insurance policies, cover the economic cost of widespread closures, and adjust workers' compensation criteria, among other new developments."

"FAIR was created to safeguard the ability of the insurance industry to support its customers at a time when policymakers, the business community, and the general public are searching for solutions to our ongoing economic turmoil," Sean Kevelighan, Triple-I's CEO, said in the statement. "And while we recognize the need for financial relief is severe, any attempts to make insurers retroactively responsible for a global pandemic put the solvency of many insurers at risk."

Mr. Kevelighan went on to say that while the insurance industry is "doing its part" to support communities during the pandemic crisis, "pandemics are fundamentally uninsurable events. The federal government remains the only entity with the financial resources to help businesses recover from a systemic event of this magnitude."