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Business Insurance For
Terrorists
(by the way we are
really only joking. Honestly!!)
The business insurance business
has been in the doldrums for several years now. The
great recession which supposedly ended in July 2009 has
not helped the British business insurers one iota. A
special committee was appointed by the insurers to
provide solutions for the stagnant business conditions.
Their conclusion was simple. Until confidence is
restored in the economic outlook for business, new
markets would need to be discovered and developed.
Yet another committee was convened to find these new
markets. The only new market that was robust enough to
lift the business insurance business out of its slump
was terrorism. There were other new markets considered,
but they were all affected by the same economic malaise
that was depressing the rest of the world's economic
output. Green and alternative energy was considered but
a brief survey of the current conditions indicate that
the only companies that will succeed will be in mainland
China. The Chinese government is very very involved with
the success of their nascent industrial revolution and
want to keep insurance for these companies to
themselves. The same applies to high speed trains. The
Chinese announced recently a test run of a passenger
train capable of 500 KPH, roughly 312 MPH. No mention
was made of observed performance.
The committee defended its conclusions by reminding
everyone that world wide terrorism is the only leading
growth industry in this current recession. Most
businesses are holding back on plans to expand due to
the high degree of uncertainty about the future. Many of
the terrorist business activity is carried out by
suicide bombers, so their approach to future investment
is done with little or no concern about future
consequences since their operatives will not be around
to see if their endeavours succeed or fail.
Since the insurance business is by its very nature risk
averse, there was plenty of objections and questions on
the proposal. The more conservative insurers compared
terrorism to acts of war, which business insurers not
only do not cover, they write specific clauses to
protect them from having to cover acts of war. Others
objected on moral principles since offering coverage
against failed acts of terrorism put the insurers in
avery awkward position. If the terrorist complete their
sociopathic acts of mayhem and murder, the insurers will
profit at the expense of the victims of terrorism. If
the terrorists miss their targets, the insurers have to
pay the sponsors of the failed act. Many insurers felt
very uncomfortable with that idea.
To avoid further argumentation and discord, the group
decided to appoint a new committee to decide if they
were going to insure terrorists, should they insure
state sponsored terrorists, freelance terrorists or
both. This would make it easier to focus on the issues
of moral hazard, conflict of interest and the bad public
relations this new idea could generate for the entire
business. |