Think those of us working in insurance are too boring to celebrate Halloween? Witch, please. Believe it or not, CFC has some serious appetite for spooky risks. From mortality consultants to synthetic humans, they’ll consider more than your bog standard risk! Check out the some of the haunting risks from their healthcare, management liability, professions and tech teams:

Childhood fears

Exposure therapy is designed to help you overcome your deepest and darkest childhood fears. Put on a VR headset that simulates scary clowns chasing you through a funhouse. That’ll sort you out, right?

We provide healthcare, tech and cyber cover (including affirmative bodily injury language arising out of multiple triggers) for digital health exposure therapy companies, all under our eHealth policy.

Hello from the other side

If you’re looking to speak to a loved one who is deceased, a platform now exists to connect consumers with psychics via the telephone or messaging. However, all is well until a client claims to be defrauded by a psychic’s services.

We covered the tech platform under our management liability policy.

Synthetic humans

A medical device manufacturer is developing a synthetic human to be used by hospitals and medical schools to reduce the need for human donors and animals for use in training. A fa-boo-lous idea!

We provided D&O coverage to meet the requirements of the manufacturer’s seed investors.

Modern day grim reaper

Goodbye grim reapers, hello mortality consultants. These professionals develop computer-based models of how long an individual or population is likely to live and the most likely causes of death.

We provided professional liability cover for the mortality consultancy.

Horror games

Not everyone likes to get their fill of thrills, but those who do have probably dabbled in a few of the popular horror games developed by a well-known mobile games developer who we insured.

We provide cover for tech E&O, including contingent BI/PD, cyber and media, as well as excess coverage over D&O for game developers.

Bonus: We did not write that…

As much as we love our extraterrestrial friends, our K&R team had to decline a submission for alien abduction and impregnation. Regrettably, we also did not cover a Sasquatch sighting which caused severe shock and emotional distress.

Source: www.cfcunderwriting.com

Imagine a nascent but fast-growing global market generating revenues running to billions of dollars and annual audiences well into the hundreds of millions. Now stop imagining – what you’re thinking about is the world of esports.

Moving mainstream

Esports have been developing for some years now, and the growing numbers and sophistication of the market prove it is here for the long haul.

Most of us are familiar with online gaming. Esports takes things one step further. Instead of people playing video games on their own, esports has created an entire online and in-person spectator experience around these games.

Professional players compete alone or as part of teams, battling each other in tournaments or as part of a league. Audiences fill out arenas, watching players fight it out on massive screens, or supporters log in online and watch their favourites play remotely.

In 2017, esports generated almost $700m in revenues worldwide and a global audience of almost 400 million.

In 2021, despite the impact of COVID-19 on physical spectator events, the market is forecast to have revenues of almost $1.1bn and an audience of 475 million.

Market stakeholders

There are many different stakeholders in the world of esports. There are the publishers who make the games that people play. There are then the tournament organizers. In many cases, publishers run their own tournaments, but there are also lots of third parties organizing events.

Streaming platforms such as Twitch or YouTube Gaming allow players to record and broadcast themselves to online audiences, who can then engage with supporters as they play. These players are often part of professional teams.

There are then the fans, who watch online or attend live events. They spend significant sums on merchandise and can support players through donations and subscriptions.

On top of all this sit the sponsors who provide the lion’s share of the market’s revenue and in 2021 this segment will account for almost 60% of the money generated by esports.

Investment interest

Understandably, investors want to get involved in a market that is generating revenues that will exceed $1bn this year and where live stream viewer numbers are exploding.

The COVID-19 lockdown restrictions accelerated the growth in these numbers, which will continue to grow as more games are tailored for watching on mobile devices and the experience for remote users improves.

FaZe Clan has led the way in monetizing interest in gaming through an entertainment-first model which has garnered a global fanbase of 339 million combined across all social platforms.

Audiences of this scale offer significant opportunities and it is no surprise that most of the money generated in the esports market comes from outside of competitive play.

New concepts are being developed quickly and are proving hugely successful. For example, a Travis Scott concert was hosted and broadcast within the game Fortnite. Players could drop in and watch the concert as part of their playing experience. They could also buy digital merchandise as part of the show.

The concert attracted 27.7 million unique viewers across five showings within the game, demonstrating the potential of these innovative events to engage new and sizeable audiences.

Risk and reward  

In 2024, esports is on track to appear at the Paris Olympics as a side event. This sort of mainstream exposure will further accelerate its already stellar growth and make it even more attractive to big brands and sponsors.

In recent months, the restrictions on live events created by COVID-19 have seen many professional sports turn to esport alternatives to maintain audience engagement.

It is also the case that as a developing market, esports has not yet been standardized, increasing the number of opportunities to engage with the multiple structures surrounding the various players, teams, leagues and tournaments.

In the same way that professional football, or any other established global sport, relies on insurance, elite level esports has the same need for safeguards and protections, and demand is growing.

It is a market that is brimming with potential from media, entertainment and advertising to sponsorship, contingency and individual players.

Source: www.cfcunderwriting.com

COVID-19 dragged the events industry off a cliff, and the climb back to the top has still got a long way to go.

Governments across the globe have earmarked dates to do away with limits on social contact and it’s these dates the entire events sector is eagerly awaiting.

The pent-up demand to host and attend events is palpable and in recent weeks we have begun to see a noticeable uptick in the number of enquiries coming through to our contingency team.

This is especially the case for smaller events that do not require the same lead time or upfront investment as flagship gatherings such as Glastonbury or Coachella.

Supporting the transition back to full scale live events

The idea is to let several events go ahead in tightly controlled environments, so organizers and authorities can work out the best way to hold them safely in the future. Governments will be offering compensation should a pilot event be cancelled due to public health reasons.

Many people are clamouring for a comprehensive support package from the government in terms of providing backstop contingency cover for future events. In addition, any such cover would probably require event organizers to have their own insurance in place to respond in the first instance.

As brokers and their clients seek to arrange cover for their forthcoming events, they will have to bear in mind the significant impact COVID-19 has had on the contingency market.

Changing market dynamics

When the first lockdowns came into force in early 2020, scheduled events simply disappeared from the agenda. Enquiries for cover fell away to nothing and plans for live events were cancelled or shelved.

Some carriers took COVID-19 as their cue to leave the market, although there were also new entrants who saw it as an opportunity to capitalize on hardening rates.

At the moment, the small number of risks being placed in the market means it is difficult to tell just how much rates have hardened. But that will become more apparent in the coming months as volumes return to something more like normal.

Given the scale of recent losses and the historically soft nature of the pre-pandemic market, it is inevitable the price rises will be significant.

In addition, policyholders should expect exclusions for COVID-19 and communicable diseases to be standard. This cover will still be available if it is specifically required, although it will come at a cost and from a reduced number of carriers.

In truth, communicable disease exclusions were standard in the contingency market before the onset of COVID-19, although there will be more focus on them in its aftermath.

Where the difference between the pre and post pandemic market will be more pronounced is in the ability to find underwriters prepared to take on an entire risk. This issue will be more prevalent for larger events and brokers may find themselves having to engage with numerous markets to place the full cover required, when a single carrier might have offered it in the past.

Heightened awareness of risk

In a devastatingly short period of time, COVID-19 has shown the debilitating power of pandemics to bring live events, and economies more generally, to a halt.

Previous public health issues such as Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) never delivered the widespread disruption they threatened. This cannot be said of COVID-19 and it has significantly heightened the awareness of the cancellation risk faced by the events sector.

This more practical understanding of cancellation risk should increase the penetration of contingency insurance and grow the overall size of the market in the coming months and years.

Even if event organizers decide not to buy cover, risk management considerations will be much higher up their agenda and they will be more open to discussions on the subject as they plan their event.

This extra interest should also act as a catalyst for brokers to strengthen existing client relationships and to develop new ones. It may also encourage clients to be more active in assessing and understanding the exact nature of the wordings and definitions in their policies. Such engagement would be positive for the market and minimize unexpected outcomes in the event of a loss.

In whatever way brokers and their clients interact with the contingency market going forward, they can rest assured it will be there to offer them the cover they need. Underwriters are just as desperate as they are to see live events back on the daily agenda.

Source: www.cfcunderwriting.com

Product recall insurance helps safeguard a business from the financial impact of a recall, specifically the first and third-party costs associated with identifying and addressing the issue, conducting the recall and keeping the business operational.

When considering product recall insurance, it’s important to remember that the cost of a recall includes much more than the cost of getting the goods off shelves or back from customers.

Recalls of any kind can impact cash flow, squeezing a company’s ability to pay staff, purchase raw materials or even continue production. For some businesses, a product recall can present a true crisis.

For more information about CFC’s product recall policy click here to download the full infographic below.

Source: www.cfcunderwriting.com