Asbestos Specific Insurer Start-Up Launched

by Stewart Douglas

Story link: Asbestos Specific Insurer Start-Up Launched

A start-up reinsurance firm has today announced it is to provide cover for asbestos related problems and exposure to corporate clients, managing commercial risk to backdated asbestos and related health risked posed to former employees in dangerous work environments.

St George Re Limited has been set up to provide cover in lieu of the rise in personal injury claims over asbestos exposure and asbestos related conditions, which has since been proven to have a direct link to some serious health problems in those formerly working alongside the substance.

As a result many firms and insurance companies have had to bare the brunt of heavy financial claims from sufferers of potentially life threatening cancers and conditions caused by the use of the substance, much of which can be linked back to many vocations of the time giving rise to liability on the part of the employers involved.

“Managing and absorbing the risk of legacy asbestos problems in-house can consume significant corporate and managerial resources,” said St George executive Colin Barnes, commenting on the need for services like his to offer asbestos-specific insurance cover.

“This ‘asbestos overhang’ also clouds perceptions of shareholder value as outside parties and stakeholders struggle to understand how a company’s asbestos problems will impact its balance sheet and future earnings,” he added.

The business has the backing of the Berkshire Hathaway Group, which will enable it to muster sufficient resources to meet initial demand as required, with a view to helping it through its troublesome start-up period. It remains to be seen whether the fledgling insurer will be able to strengthen its market holding as it begins writing its first transactions.