BEAZLEY TURNS FOCUS TO MEDIA IN COVERAGE FOR DESIGN PROS

Beazley Insurance Co. takes a unique approach to architects and engineers professional liability by focusing on various media-related coverages needed by design professionals.

“We are still the only company at this point who has taken a media technology policy and built the architects and engineers professional liability policy into that, because we feel at this point that the industry has shifted over the last 20 years for the architects and engineers that they have much more liability than just doing their design,” explains Dana Brown, specialty underwriter for architects and engineers for Beazley Insu-rance Co.

The media portion includes coverage for the transfer of electronic data.

“If, for some reason, a firm goes and somehow messes up the electronic data within the overall program, who’s going to be liable? Is that something that’s coming out of a professional service, or is that just data entry that has caused a problem? So, we’re picking up that,” Brown notes.

It also provides cover for those firms that are offering software or even technology products that remotely operate the plants they design.

Beazley also incorporates computer network security coverage for firms’ Web sites. “If somebody broke into that site, hacked in, and takes that data that is considered confidential, again, who’s going to cover that?” she asked.

Finally, the media-focused A&E policy includes liability for multi-media and advertising, as well as copyright infringement. “Most carriers, if you go and ask them, ‘Is copyright covered?’ The standard answer is, ‘Well, it’s not excluded.’ Well, is it covered? It’s hard to get underwriters to say it is, because the reality is that it really isn’t. There are separate policies available for it. But we’re covering that,” Brown said.