XL Capital Unveils LossLink

XL Capital Ltd. announced the launch of LossLink, a searchable database of financial losses experienced by industries globally. LossLink was developed by XL’s insurance operations (“XL Insurance”) and contains more than 2,000 entries profiling significant losses among various industries in more than 20 countries.

LossLink is a compilation of publicly available loss information, which assists XL Insurance underwriters, their clients and brokers to develop an understanding of the diversity and severity of risks that may impact their industry.

Evelyn Wolovnick, senior vice president of Global Sales and Marketing for XL Insurance, said, “History offers valuable lessons. Especially where risk management is concerned, lessons of the past provide sound direction in developing the right strategies for the future.”

“For risk managers and their brokers, LossLink provides ample historical loss data to encourage a greater understanding of the risks businesses face. Among its many benefits, LossLink offers risk managers the opportunity to evaluate their liability limits against real-life, although sometimes sizeable, losses encountered by others in their industry,” Wolovnick explained. “When companies are unsure of how much coverage to purchase, LossLink helps them determine whether their liability limits can adequately address the potential risks.”

LossLink, formerly known as XL’s Industry Loss Report, was developed by XL Insurance (Bermuda) Ltd as a tool for its general liability underwriters. As XL’s insurance operations grew, the scope of the tool was expanded for use by its Directors & Officers, Errors & Omissions and Employment Practices Liability underwriters.

The database’s content has reportedly grown throughout the years and is now used as a research tool for XL underwriters throughout XL’s Insurance Operations.

Examples from LossLink’s database include:

* A 1999 employee race and gender discrimination suit against a university that resulted in a $12.5 million jury verdict;
* A $58 million securities fraud settlement by an international bank in
2002;
* An $18.2 million General Liability settlement for unfair competition
incurred by a telecommunications firm in 2004;
* A $44 million Error & Omission loss in 2000 as a result of a structure collapse during renovation.

The database can be searched in a variety of ways, including by type of liability, country, industry, date or size of loss.