Anglian Water, one of the largest water and wastewater company in England and Wales, has purchased Aon’s exclusive, industry leading insurance product for water utility companies, Water Resilience Insurance. Providing water services to 4.3m customers and wastewater to more than 2.5m homes million domestic and commercial customers in the east of England and Hartlepool, Anglian Water is the first water utility in the world to take advantage of Aon’s next-generation product. Aon is one of the world’s leading insurance brokers and risk management firms.
Aon’s Water Resilience Insurance has been developed after client feedback and industry consultation regarding the limitations and practicalities of current coverage. Approaching water contamination from a practical standpoint, Water Resilience Insurance provides compensation not only in the event of malicious water tampering, accidental contamination and extortion, but takes into account real-life scenarios not typically covered till now. This can include costs involved when a “boil notice” or “avoid consumption notice” have to be issued, and the subsequent losses to a water utility including goodwill payments and alternative mass distribution including providing bottled water to vulnerable customers.
Water Resilience Insurance not only provides cover for the traditional elements of contamination insurance, including costs for forensic analyses, cleaning and flushing of the water system, transportation costs and employee overtime but also for third party financial losses, for example when customers incur loss of gross profits or extra expense due to contaminated water they are using to produce or treat their products with.
Christof Bentele, global managing director of Aon’s product recall and contamination team, commented: “With water utilities all over the world facing ever greater levels of regulation, scrutiny and threat, Water Resilience Insurance has not come a moment too soon. With water suppliers serving hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of domestic and commercial customers, the financial impact of a contamination can be absolutely devastating.
“Water Resilience Insurance is the result of extensive consulting with clients and industry about their needs, and is the latest development from Aon’s product recall and contamination team, with many more innovations to come.”
Phil Robinson, Group Insurance Manager from Anglian Water commented: “Anglian Water borrows water from the environment, stores it and then treats it to world-class standards to supply safe drinking water to its customers; Aon’s Water Resilience Insurance gives us peace of mind that in the rare event these standards can not be maintained, any losses incurred can be mitigated with this insurance cover. Other insurance products in this space are extremely restrictive and we feel this is providing the best coverage for Anglian Water and its stakeholders. ”
Source : Aon press Release
