Jardine Lloyd Thompson’s (JLT) Hong Kong-based subsidiary has launched a business interruption product to protect against disruption caused by the outbreak of infectious diseases.
The product, called Health Emergency Loss Protection (Help) is designed to protect companies in the event of denial to their premises, either in part or in whole, due an outbreak of infectious diseases, said JLT.
JLT said it believed Help was the first such product available in the Asian market.
The company said it expected the product to be particularly popular with the hospitality industry, including hotels, restaurants, theme parks, and convention centres, which suffered huge financial losses due to the 2003 SARS outbreak.
“The launch of Help represents a groundbreaking initiative which JLT believes gives companies protection for the first time since insurers changed their policy wording in the wake of the SARS crisis in 2003 to remove infectious disease protection from business interruption policies,” said JLT Hong Kong chief operating officer and deputy managing director Nick Cousins.
Cousins added: “Given the lessons from last year’s SARS outbreak, regulatory authorities in the region are likely to act quickly to contain any future outbreaks, whether involving SARS or other infectious diseases.
“The potential impact of a future outbreak of an infectious disease poses a serious economic risk to many businesses. JLT has considerable expertise in this area having successfully resolved SARS-related claims for certain hotel clients.
