Chubb Ltd

Political risk insurance is a specialized coverage that provides clients with protection against unexpected, catastrophic political or macroeconomic events, primarily in emerging markets. We participate in this market through our Bermuda based wholly-owned subsidiary Sovereign Risk Insurance Ltd. (Sovereign), and through a unit of our London-based CGM operation. Chubb is one of the world's leading underwriters of political risk and credit insurance, has a global portfolio spread across more than 150 countries and is also a member of The Berne Union. Our clients include financial institutions, national export credit agencies, leading multilateral agencies, private equity firms and multinational corporations. CGM writes political risk and credit insurance business out of underwriting offices in London, United Kingdom; Hamburg, Germany; Sao Paulo, Brazil; Singapore; Tokyo, Japan; and in the U.S. in the following locations: Chicago, New York, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Our political risk insurance products provide protection to commercial lenders against defaults on cross border loans, cover investors against equity losses, and protect exporters against defaults on contracts. Commercial lenders, our largest client segment, are covered for missed scheduled loan repayments due to acts of confiscation, expropriation or nationalization by the host government, currency inconvertibility or exchange transfer restrictions, or war or other acts of political violence. In addition, in the case of loans to government-owned entities or loans that have a government guarantee, political risk policies cover scheduled payments against risks of non-payment or non-honoring of government guarantees. Private equity investors and corporations cover their equity investments against financial losses, such as expropriatory events, inability to repatriate dividends, and physical damage to their operations caused by covered political risk events. Our export contracts product provides coverage for both exporters and their financing banks against the risk of contract frustration due to government actions, including non-payment by governmental entities.

CGM's credit insurance businesses cover losses due to insolvency, protracted default, and political risk perils including export and license cancellation. Our credit insurance product provides coverage to larger companies that have sophisticated credit risk management systems, with exposure to multiple customers and that have the ability to self-insure losses up to a certain level through excess of loss coverage. It also provides coverage to trade finance banks, exporters, and trading companies, with exposure to trade-related financing instruments. CGM also has limited capacity for Specialist Credit insurance products which provide coverage for project finance and working capital loans for large corporations and banks.

We have implemented structural features in our policies in order to control potential losses within the political risk and credit insurance businesses. These include basic loss sharing features such as co-insurance and deductibles and, in the case of trade credit, the use of non-qualifying losses that drop smaller exposures deemed too difficult to assess. Ultimate loss severity is also limited by using waiting periods to enable the insurer and insured to mitigate losses and to agree on recovery strategies if a claim does materialize. We have the option to pay claims over the original loan repayment schedule, rather than in a lump sum, in order to provide insureds and the insurer additional time to remedy problems and work towards full recoveries. It is important to note that political risk and credit policies are named peril conditional insurance contracts, not financial guarantees, and claims are only paid after conditions and warranties are fulfilled. Political risk and credit insurance policies do not cover currency devaluations, bond defaults, movements in overseas equity markets, transactions deemed illegal, situations where corruption or misrepresentation has occurred, or debt that is not legally enforceable. In addition to assessing and mitigating potential exposure on a policy-by-policy basis, we also have specific risk management measures in place to manage overall exposure and risk. These measures include placing country, credit, and individual transaction limits based on country risk and credit ratings, combined single loss limits on multi-country policies, the use of quota share and excess of loss reinsurance protection as well as quarterly modeling and stress-testing of the portfolio. We have a dedicated Country and Credit Risk management team that is responsible for the portfolio.