The complexity and uncertainty of the coronavirus or COVID-19 outbreak is worrisome, to put it mildly. As of this writing, the virus has infected 90,000 people and left more than 3,000 people dead, mostly in China, but the spike in cases around the world remind me of those doomsday movies where it shows a map with the plague hopping from one place to another with ease.  When we get mixed messages from our leaders, and health experts debate the proper response, it is not surprising to see a growing anxiety in the general populace.

I have heard from two large companies in the insurance world that have very different responses for their employees. One has banned all non-essential travel not only overseas, but here in the US as well. The other has taken a more wait and see approach, advising employees to use “common sense” when traveling. Many businesses have asked their employees to work from homes – which won’t help someone on the factory floor or who works in a restaurant.

A couple of things come to mind as I try to get my head around the potential impact to captives. First, most traditional insurance policies have exclusions for pandemics in their policies. According to the Insurance Journal, the world’s largest insurers learned lessons from previous health crises, including the 2003 SARS outbreak, and have tightened up their policies, inserting communicable-disease exclusions to prevent potential losses. That means consumers and companies will bear the brunt of the cost for disruptions related to the virus. Whether captive insurance can help mitigate potential losses is something that we have begun to look into more closely.

The other impact is something captives and traditional insurers have been dealing with for some time. Investment returns have been stingy for the insurance world for many years and many have diversified away from more traditional bonds to equities. Investment losses rather than claims will likely cause the biggest hit to insurers from the coronavirus outbreak, according to a report from Moody’s Investor Services Inc.  Moody’s said, “A prolonged period of market weakness would also hurt insurers’ investment income and reduce their access to capital…”

As for me, I seem to swing back and forth after every news story I hear on the virus on what “common sense” means. Without a doubt, the COVID-19 has already had an impact on the world economy and our general sense of health and safety.  I believe in the resilience of the captive insurance industry and know that many of the people involved with risk management at their organizations will play an important part in stemming this outbreak.  Let’s all hope that we see the end of this sooner rather than later.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you!

Rich Smith
VCIA President