Mad Cow: Insurance Ramifications
Monday, December 29th, 2003 LiabilityMad Cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy BSE), formerly the scourge of Europe, has come to the United States. With the discovery of one dairy cow from a herd of 4,000 in rural Washington state infected with Mad Cow Disease, comes far-reaching insurance ramifications, according to Robert Hartwig, Ph.D., CPCU, senior vice president/chief economist of the Insurance Information Institute, New York, N.Y. According to Hartwig, the economic costs associated with the discovery of a Mad Cow infected animal could easily be in the billions, as countries impose bans on imported U.S. beef and U.S. consumers avoid buying it. Still, the economic costs are very different from the insurance costs. Hartwig offers his take on potential types of insurance coverages and the exposures involved:
