Disaster Law Commons^™

Ashes To Ashes: A Way Home For Climate Change Survivors, Kenneth S. Klein

Faculty Scholarship

In 2020, the United States suffered a record number of named storms, a record number of storms causing $1 billion or more in damage, a derecho that destroyed much of Iowa’s corn crop, and previously unheard-of levels of wildfire frequency and damage in California, Oregon, and Washington. The effects of climate change are causing a crisis of affordable, available homeowner insurance. As more and more homes in the United States are in high-risk areas for natural catastrophes, insurers increasingly choose not to offer insurance at all in some communities, exclude disaster risks from coverage in others, and dramatically raise prices …

Covid-19 Business Interruption Insurance Losses: The Cases For And Against Coverage, Christopher French

Journal Articles

The financial consequences of the government-ordered shutdowns of businesses across America to mitigate the COVID-19 health crisis are enormous. Estimates indicate that small businesses have lost $255 to $431 billion per month and more than 44 million workers have been laid off. When businesses have requested reimbursement of their business interruption losses from their insurers under business interruption policies, their insurers have denied the claims. The insurance industry also has announced that business interruption policies do not cover pandemic losses, so they intend to fight COVID-19 claims “tooth and nail.” More than 450 lawsuits throughout the country already have been …

Cyber Insurance Today: Saving It Before It Needs Saving, Angela Nieves

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

Cyber insurance, which covers a company’s losses and costs stemming from a cyberattack, represents a nearly $5 billion global market. But have stakeholders shaped a sustainable model? This article analyzes contrasting claims about the viability of cyber insurance. It proposes measures to ensure the survival of the cyber insurance market, which should be immediately addressed given the current state of the world and the fact that even pre-COVID-19, businesses worldwide stood to lose over $5.2 trillion over the next five years due to cybercrimes. Unless action is taken to mitigate the fallout from cyber events, the cyber insurance market will …

Three Years Later, Sandy Survivors Remain Homeless, Melissa H. Luckman, Daniel Strafer, Christina Lipski

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Perverse Effects Of Subsidized Weather Insurance, Omri Ben-Shahar, Kyle D. Logue

Articles

This Article explores the role of insurance as a substitute for direct regulation of risks posed by severe weather. In pricing the risk of human activity along the predicted path of storms, insurance can provide incentives for efficient location decisions as well as for cost-justified mitigation efforts in building construction and infrastructure. Currently, however, much insurance for severe-weather risks is provided and heavily subsidized by the government. This Article demonstrates two primary distortions arising from the government’s dominance in these insurance markets. First, existing government subsidies are allocated differentially across households, resulting in a significant regressive redistribution favoring affluent homeowners …

Insuring Landslides: America’S Uninsured Natural Catastrophes, Christopher French

Christopher C. French

Compensating The Victims Of Japan’S 3-11 Fukushima Disaster, Eric A. Feldman

All Faculty Scholarship

Japan’s March 2011 triple disaster—first a large earthquake, followed by a massive tsunami and a nuclear meltdown—caused a devastating loss of life, damaged and destroyed property, and left hundreds of thousands of people homeless, hurt, and in need. This article looks at the effort to address the financial needs of the victims of the 3/11 disaster by examining the role of public and private actors in providing compensation, describing the types of groups and individuals for whom compensation is available, and analyzing the range of institutions through which compensation has been allocated. The story is in some ways cause for …

Natural Disaster Risks: An Introduction, W. Kip Viscusi

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

An introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty dealing with the implications of catastrophic events for research on risk and uncertainty. What are the consequences of natural disasters? How do individuals and firms respond to such disasters? How do insurers respond, and how should the government respond? Several of these papers will have a strong normative component as they will suggest what actions individuals, firms, and the government should take in anticipation of natural disasters.