BOLT ASKS ENERGY CASUALTY INSURERS FOR NEW REALISTIC DISASTER SCENARIOS

Tom Bolt, Director of Performance Management at Lloyd's, has asked energy casualty underwriters to submit a series of new realistic disaster scenarios (RDSs) in the wake of the Macondo Oil Field disaster. Mr Bolt held a series of meetings with marine casualty underwriters to discuss current issues. He told Insurance Day at the reinsurance gathering in Baden-Baden that "we've asked them to do some new realistic disaster scenarios which they should have got to us some time last week [and] we will continue to review that. The business doesn't really renew in the main until March 1 and April 1, so we have some time to work out with the market what's the right thing to do". The problem that might have arisen, and which was indicated by the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig disaster, was a number of different companies all being covered by the same syndicates for the same event. Transocean, Cameron International, Halliburton, Anadarko and Mitsui Petroleum all have cover for the Deepwater Horizon that has at least in part ended up at Lloyd's. It was seen as a "lucky escape" that the main sufferer – BP – was self-insured.