Engineer conducting a burn test on premises

[Rob]

Scenario: Engineer has a BOP and PL with CNA. He is conducting a class with insurance adjusters on the investigation of electrical fires. He will be conducting a burn test of an 8' X 10' mockup of a room (raised off the concrete) in the parking lot (with sufficient distance) and the Fire Department present.

He is asking for a special event policy but do you see anything that pops out at you indicating there would not be coverage on a standard BOP for something like this? I've read the policy and the pollution exclusion has a hostile fire exception and the insured has disclosed it to the underwriter.

The underwriter said "insured's policy is a Business Owners type of coverage - covering office exposure,
this event is out of the office - dealing with fire."

So I asked her to point to the part of the policy which excludes anything out of the office and she says she needs to review.

Thoughts?

[Phils]

My thoughts are like yours, Rob.

I'd be reading carefully the policy contract to see if this class is excluded for some reason.

I would also guess that finding "special event" carriers that would cover this situation might be difficult. I hope you'll post the outcome.

Phil

[Rob]

My thoughts are like yours, Rob.

I'd be reading carefully the policy contract to see if this class is excluded for some reason.

I would also guess that finding "special event" carriers that would cover this situation might be difficult. I hope you'll post the outcome.

Phil

I presented to his current carrier with my interpretation after reading the policy that it would not be excluded and the carrier concurred but advised that although it is not excluded, they do not contemplate this type of exposure in their program and thus would have to issue a notice of cancellation unless we could write a special event policy elsewhere OR have somebody else, not hired or subcontracted by the insured, conduct the demonstration....such as the Fire Department. I presented this option to the insured and he was able to get the insurance carrier whose adjusters he is teaching to conduct the demonstration and he is going to have them indemnify him.