Product Recall Not Covered By Insurance

It was recently announced that ConAgra would have to spend up to $60 million to recall Peter Pan Peanut Butter due to the recent salmonella outbreak that affected almost 300 people.

Without commenting on ConAgra's insurance, this is a good time to point out that product recall expenses are not covered by 99.9% of all product liability insurance policies.

General liability insurance includes product liability (for most insurance buyers). The policy will pay for the liability resulting from bodily injury and property damage from contaminated products. The policy will not cover the expense of recalling suspected or actually tainted products.

Some insurance companies do offer recall coverage - either as an addition to the general liability policy or as a stand-alone policy. It is, however, a rarely purchased coverage.

126 Questions to Ask Your Insurance Agent

I frequently hear from insurance buyers that they don't understand insurance. "I don't even know what questions to ask!" is a common complaint.

I decided to put some of the questions I ask down on paper. I started trying to come up with 50. The list just kept on growing. I stopped at 126. I'm sure I could find more. I guess I just had to stop somewhere.

Here are 126 questions that will help insurance buyers determine if they have the right coverage.

To download the free white paper just go to: http://www.insurance-coveragelaw.com/questions.html.

New Risk Management Tool - Open Source Insurance Project

I just unveiled what I believe is the first open source insurance / risk management project, Scott's Risk List.

Go to http://scottsrisklist.blogspot.com/.

The idea is to build a tool that will help insurance agents, brokers and consultants uncover businesses exposures and concerns. Similar to what has been done in software, perhaps this can lead to an amazingly helpful resource in risk management.

Market Solution To Health Insurance Mess

Here's my letter to the editor published in today's Portland (Maine) Press Herald:

It was announced recently that California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has come up with a new health-insurance plan for his state that is as bad as any proposed so far.
It may be worse than the plan that our own Gov. Baldacci has been selling us.
The health-care payment problem in this country will not be solved by falling back on the failed policies of central control.

Mandated coverage, payment limitations and forced insurance purchases by employers will only lead to less competition, shortages, higher costs and poorer service -- just as all socialistic policies do.
The free marketplace that makes our economy great is the only hope for our health-care system. It's no accident that the most widely regulated part of our economy is also the quarter of most trouble.
Walk into any office of the Department of Motor Vehicles to see what health care under more government control or a single-payer system will be like.