Willis enhances DARCstar D&O offering

by Gill Montia

Story link: Willis enhances DARCstar D&O offering

Willis has improved its DARCstar directors’ and officers’ (D&O) insurance and launched two new products in the range: prospectus liability insurance and Eclipse, an excess policy for non-executive directors that provides additional protection against insurer insolvency.

Commenting on developments, Willis’ director, financial, executive risk and professional liability, Francis Kean, says: “Directors today also need protection against those rare but devastating high impact claims, which is why we’ve introduced Eclipse: a one-stop solution to the threat of insurer insolvency and limit exhaustion.”

He adds: “Recent lawsuits against News International and JP Morgan show that the need for broad D&O protection has never been greater.”

The public offering of securities insurance now features: automatic cover for secondary offerings; separate ring-fenced limit of cover for prospectus exposures to cover ordinary limitation periods for any claims.

Eclipse offers the following special features in addition to standard excess limit protection: insurer insolvency drop down for all loss covered under a DARCstar programme; an additional limit available at the insured’s election either for the non-executive directors, or the whole board of the parent company, for which the sole trigger is exhaustion of the D&O insurance tower; loss covered irrespective of insurance or indemnification available from any other source.

According to Willis, DARCstar has attracted 43 companies with annual turnover totalling over £300 billion in its first year.

Since its launch in the UK, the policy has been introduced in Spain, Israel and Hong Kong, with further roll out planned for Scandinavia and Latin America this year.