CFC Underwriting is increasingly seeing demand for active assailant insurance cover from organizations in Canada.
“The US market currently makes up over 95% of CFC’s account but we’re increasingly seeing Canadian submissions as insureds understand it’s not just gun-related violence that this product caters for,” said Rob Tuttlebee, CFC terrorism and political violence underwriter.
While a terrorism policy is geared around property damage and interruption, active assailant cover is designed to “provide cover for victim and organization support costs and crisis management costs, as well as the insured’s legal liabilities,” Tuttlebee said.
Loss of attraction cover is also included in an active assailant policy, to “help the insured recover from any prolonged impact to revenue”, according to Tuttlebee.
Experts described active assailant insurance as a “newer” cover and put its worldwide age at between six and 10 years old, having developed out of terrorism and political violence practices. For comparison’s sake – cyber insurance, another line often seen to be young or evolving, came on to the Canadian market in the early 2000s.
Read more: What is cyber insurance?
Active assailant cover is heavily concentrated in North America, with the US taking up around 95% of the global market, broker and insurer sources also told Insurance Business. One of its original enduring names is active shooter insurance.
In terms of gun violence, Canada has not faced the same levels as its North American neighbour. The US has seen at least 389 mass shooting events so far this year alone at the time of writing, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
That is not to say, though, that there have not been times that Canadian communities have been rocked by firearms-related incidents.
In new rules mooted this year, the country is set to see a freeze on handguns from the fall, and from August 19 imports will be banned. The federal government has also moved to increase criminal penalties for gun smuggling and for the removal of licenses from those seen to be at risk of perpetrating violence.
This April 18 and 19, the Canadian public was urged to “come together” for a moment of silence on the second anniversary of one gunman’s Nova Scotia rampage that left 22 dead – marking the deadliest mass shooting event in Canada’s recent history.
Gun violence has continued to disrupt neighborhoods. On Monday, August 1, six people were wounded after shots were fired in a Dams Foods parking lot in Ajax, Southern Ontario, according to Durham Police. In an earlier, separate, incident, two victims and the suspected gunman were declared dead by police after a July 25 shooting in Langley, British Columbia.
“We need only look south of the border to know that if we do not take action, firmly and rapidly, it gets worse and worse and more difficult to counter,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reportedly said on announcing the new policies.
It’s not just guns that get used as weapons, with attackers in cases in Europe and North America having used vehicles, explosive devices, or other deadly instruments.
In Canada, Nathaniel Veltman faces trial for his alleged actions on June 6, 2021, in London, Ontario. The 21-year-old is accused of having deliberately driven a pickup truck into pedestrians in an Islamophobic attack, killing four members of a family.
The insurance cover has evolved over the years to adapt to additional methods of causing harm. This means that despite the original active shooter moniker, it has evolved to encompass more areas than gun violence. It typically provides indemnity for events that may involve other weapons, which could include vehicles.
“Active Assailant policies shouldn’t restrict what can be considered a ‘weapon’,” according to Tuttlebee.
“A comprehensive policy should cover against any instrument or weapon used in a way to purposely kill or injure people such as a vehicle or explosive devices.”
