Insurance Law Commons^™

Regulating The Business Of Insurance: Federalism In An Age Of Difficult Risk, Robert H. Jerry Ii, Steven E. Roberts

Faculty Publications

Natural disasters and terrorism events of a massive scale are "difficult risks." They are difficult (or, if large enough, impossible) to insure, and they present enormous risk-management challenges. Indeed, we are now in an era when difficult risks are the dominant feature of the risk-management landscape. These kinds of risks are inevitably multi-jurisdictional in nature, and managing them effectively requires a cohesive, comprehensive national catastrophe policy involving ex ante prevention and mitigation measures, effective risk allocation through insurance mechanisms, and ex post victim-compensation strategies. Although our nation is not yet close to establishing a much-needed and increasingly discussed national catastrophe …