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Using Surety to Facilitate Infrastructure Investment

Infrastructure investment will need to rise dramatically in the coming decades if countries are to keep pace with the world’s growing population and an increasing need for energy, transport and public services.

Insatiable demand for infrastructure  will require the investment of tens – if not hundreds – of trillions of dollars over the  next four decades, according to KPMG’s Infrastructure Investment report. Asia alone  will require $11 trillion in basic infrastructure investment between now and 2030, with  Brazil, Africa, India and China likely to be the markets to watch in the coming years¹.

More than $640 billiion will need to be invested in U.S. energry infrastructure in the next two decades.

ACE Perspectives: Specialized Risk

A Perfect Storm?

January 2015

ACE Perspectives: Specialized Risk

Maritime transport is seeing a higher concentration of values in current container ships, a rising complexity of salvage operations, and...

ACE Perspectives: Specialized Risk

Guidance for Exporting to USA

November 2013

ACE Perspectives: Specialized Risk

For many companies, exports to the USA present significant potential with regard to the future sales of their products and a quick review of some headline figures explains why.

Specialized
Hospital Violence an Emerging Risk

Diane Doherty, Vice President, ACE Medical Risk Group discusses how violence continues to be an emerging area of risk for healthcare facilities and their risk managers.
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Guidance for Exporting to USA

For many companies, exports to the USA present significant potential with regard to the future sales of their products and a quick review of some headline figures explains why.
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ACE Podcast Series: How Commercial Business & Property Owners Can Best Prepare for Hurricanes

Hurricanes can be extremely destructive – the combination of storm surge, high winds and heavy rain poses serious threats, including property damage, disruption of business operations, and personal injuries and loss of life. ACE’s hurricane podcast series stresses the need for pre-planning and preparation.
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Renewable Energy: the Right Risk Partner Makes the Difference

Renewable sources play an increasingly important role in producing sustainable energy and contribute a rapidly growing share of the world’s energy needs. Among other benefits, renewables enhance energy security, reduce greenhouse gasses and protect the environment. Developing renewable sources generates new jobs, aids rural development and fosters technological leadership. While there are a number of benefits, renewable energy projects tend to be complex and may entail a wider range of risks than anticipated. Identifying and managing the risks of innovative, and often, pioneering projects, can be highly challenging. Yet, effective risk management is a fundamental prerequisite for developing a financially viable project.

Whether at the financing, construction, handover or operational stage, the failure to appropriately identify, manage, control and transfer risk is one of the factors most likely to jeopardize a renewable energy business. A crucial step in developing a successful project is to partner with experts in managing renewable energy risks right from the planning stage, through construction and into the operational phase. As part of a proactive risk management strategy, owners, operators and developers of renewable resources should look for an insurer that provides seamless coverage and for risk management assistance throughout the project lifecycle.
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Compassionate Use: Balancing Compassion and Risk in Clinical Trials

Pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials of investigational drugs and devices are increasingly faced with requests to provide the treatment being studied to patients under the compassionate use exception to federal regulations. Under this exception, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows a drug company to provide an investigational drug to a seriously ill patient who is not eligible to receive that therapy in a clinical trial or to continue to provide that drug to a patient after the trial is completed.

For patients, the stakes could not be higher. With all the regulations and precautions in place to protect the public, it can take more than ten years to bring a new drug candidate to market. Most terminally ill test subjects can’t wait that long. Although federal law prohibits drug companies from distributing unapproved drugs, FDA regulations do, under certain circumstances, allow for a compassionate use exception in single access, expanded access or continued access trials. Under the exception, the test sponsor, that is the pharmaceutical company, can apply to the FDA to offer the unapproved drug to a patient in certain limited circumstances. Under the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA), a sponsor can now charge the test subject for cost of the therapy, relieving some of the financial burden borne by the company.

The demand for compassionate use access to drug therapies still in the trial phase is on the rise, and it is putting drug companies at odds with the very people they are developing treatments to save. Recently in the news was a teenage Minnesota boy dying of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a genetic degenerative disease which predominately affects young boys, who was denied access to an unapproved drug tested in a clinical trial. Past cases include a dozen test subjects who were denied compassionate use access to the test drug for their degenerative Parkinson’s Disease after the trial was halted. In situations like these, patients and their families may turn to the courts when compassionate use is denied to try to force the pharmaceutical company to provide – or continue – the therapy.

Could these conflicts have been avoided? With proper planning and communication, the answer is “maybe”. With that said, when drug companies don’t address whether they will provide compassionate use of a test drug to test subjects prior to the start of a trial, they run the risk of creating a potential lose/lose situation for everyone. This paper will discuss that by properly managing patient expectations and making sure that the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved are clearly defined in key documents, pharmaceutical companies can mitigate the risks and, should they face litigation, strengthen their defense.
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Global Catastrophe Survival Guide: New Challenges to Casualty Risk Management

The growth in U.S. overseas investment has been staggering: from $270.5 billion in 1986 to $3.9 trillion in 2010.1 Risk managers must come to terms with the changing nature of the catastrophe risks they face as their businesses expand around the globe. At the same time, the threats to their assets have become more complex and more difficult to contain in an age of social media. Recognizing that an organization’s reputation is among its most valuable assets, sophisticated multinational corporations go to great lengths and expense to cultivate a positive image in the countries where they operate. Yet many corporations unwittingly put valuable assets at risk. How? By failing to develop effective catastrophe management plans and by implementing one-size-fits-all insurance programs that lack strong global capabilities.

A catastrophe can easily spiral out of control, damaging a company’s public image, reputation and profitability. We’ve all heard the stories: A food manufacturer’s contaminated product causes widespread illness. A chemical company experiences an accidental explosion. An office building is targeted in a terrorist attack. A stadium collapses. A train is involved in a catastrophic crash. Whatever the specific circumstances of the tragedy, if poorly handled, a disaster is likely to invite a chain reaction of investigations, penalties and heavy-handed regulation with the potential for a steep drop in shareholder value.

Even the most prudent risk management will not prevent every disaster. But U.S. companies with overseas exposures can protect their assets from the worst possible consequences with a thoughtful approach to catastrophe management as well as compliant insurance coverage from an insurance company experienced in managing risks around the world. A catastrophe that is managed properly can even enhance a company’s reputation as a responsible member of the business community.
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Planning for a Disaster Before Catastrophic Events Strike

Some catastrophes may involve human loss, but many do not. Whether it is damage from an environmental incident or caused by other factors, it is an up close and personal disaster the company needs to react to.

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Targeting the Rich: Liability Lawsuits and the Threat to Families with Emerging and Established Wealth

In these highly uncertain economic times, the issue of disparities in wealth, income, and taxation has become the subject of heated debate. As the controversy deepens and proliferates, newly released research by ACE Private Risk Services, the high net worth personal insurance business of the ACE Group, shows that many high net worth families are concerned this environment is heightening the risk they will be the target of a high-stakes liability lawsuit. Their wealth, they increasingly fear, can attract lawsuits. Aside from the financial impact, high net worth individuals fear the stress of protracted legal proceedings and risk damage to their reputations and ability to earn an income.

These concerns are not without basis, legal experts say. Under the widespread doctrine of joint and several liability, if more than one defendant is responsible for a plaintiff’s injury, any one of them may be held liable for the full amount of the damage award. This means that a lawyer will often concentrate on the person with the highest net worth, instead of the one most at fault.

Despite these dangers, people of means frequently fail to realize that many aspects of their lifestyle can lead to a costly lawsuit, such as employing household staff or serving as a volunteer board member of a charitable organization. They also tend to underestimate the potential cost of a liability lawsuit and misunderstand the affordability of effective protection. Consequently, they often lack both the proper types of liability insurance as well sufficient amounts of coverage.

This white paper draws from a survey commissioned by ACE Private Risk Services of high net worth households and from interviews with attorneys representing high net worth defendants in liability cases. The paper introduces these disquieting trends, while presenting a five-step plan for reducing the risk posed by liability lawsuits. As more wealthy families appreciate their liability exposures in today’s charged environment, they will understand the importance of working with a qualified insurance advisor to build a comprehensive program for liability protection.
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A Perfect Storm?

Maritime transport is seeing a higher concentration of values in current container ships, a rising complexity of salvage operations, and increasing supply chain risks. Together, these raise many issues for shippers, shipowners and the insurance industry and have the makings of a perfect storm.
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