A ‘micro CBRN event’ as recently in Salisbury brings potential for extensive financial losses, due to business interruption, says the underwriting body Pool Re in its latest ‘terrorism report’. Pool Re noted that the March 4 poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal is unlikely to be certified as a terrorist attack by the UK Government.
Ed Butler CBE DSO, Head of Risk Analysis at Pool Re, said: “Despite it not being a terrorist incident, Pool Re has closely monitored this incident as it has highlighted a number of CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear] post-incident and insurance lessons learned that we will feed into our CBRN modelling work. The use of even a very small amount of nerve agent and its resultant contamination can have a macro impact on businesses and the local economy.” He recalled as a young Army officer in the Cold War, training for nerve agents being used as ‘area denial weapons’ against NATO military. “The threat we faced on the inner German border was as much about perception as actual capability and, as has been clearly seen in Salisbury, the psychological impact that nerve agents can have on local populations is far greater than the reality. It might be some time before Salisbury is deemed to be fully open for business and the strategic question of โhow clean is clean enoughโ is answered. Pool Re will analyse the economic losses, and its CBRN modelling.”
The authorities in Wiltshire are promoting ‘business as usual‘ in the cathedral city.
Pool Re summed up that not all CBRN losses are the same, and the Salisbury incident may provoke a wider debate around whether some elements are capable of coverage within traditional insurance policies. The UK Government has declared that the Novichok agent used in the Salisbury attack was of a type made in Russia.
Andrew Silke, the new Pool Re/Cranfield University Professor of Terrorism, Risk Management and Resilience, has written a guest article on the IRAโs mainland bombing campaign and the forming of Pool Re, 25 years ago. For the full 14-page report, visit https://www.poolre.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Terrorism-Frequency-Report-April-2018.pdf.
About Pool Re
Pool Re is the UKโs terrorism reinsurance pool, providing underwriting over ยฃ2 trillion of exposure to terrorism risk in commercial property across the UK mainland. Visit https://www.poolre.co.uk/.
Picture by Mark Rowe; North Gate, Salisbury.
