U.K. terrorism reinsurance pool ups coverage

Pool Reinsurance Co. Ltd. is renewing its commercial reinsurance cover for three years and adding an additional layer, increasing the coverage to £1.95 billion from £1.8 billion ($2.71 billion from $2.50 billion) it bought last year, the U.K. government-backed terrorism insurance pool announced Thursday.

In a statement announcing the move, Pool Re said the two-layer program was placed with a “highly secure panel of reinsurers (which includes global reinsurers as well as its members)” led by Munich Reinsurance Co. and brokered by Guy Carpenter & Co. L.L.C.

The renewed program “mirrors the cover currently provided to Pool Re members, including chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear risks,” said Pool Re in the statement.

“I’m pleased to announce that Pool Re has bought an additional layer of reinsurance from the commercial market, above the cover that incepted last March,” Steve Coates, Pool Re’s chief underwriting officer, said in the statement. “This is an important step which reflects an increasing appetite in the reinsurance market for U.K. terrorism risk and brings us closer to our continued goal of re-engaging global capacity in the provision of terrorism cover in Great Britain.”

Pool Re said late last year it would increase its retention loss for a terrorism event as of Jan. 1 of this year to £135 million from £100 million (to $187.3 million from $138.7 million) for any one event.