Nuclear Insurance

A Melbourne newspaper - The Age - published a short letter saying "Insurance companies, I believe, won't touch nuclear power stations. Could there be a more eloquent statement of doubt from a capitalist institution?"

To which the reply: "Peter Rechner (letters 25/11) is wrong in believing that insurers will not touch nuclear power stations. In fact, wherever they are available to private sector insurers, Western-designed nuclear installations are sought-after business because of their high engineering and risk management standards. This has been the case for fifty years."
Stephen Brain, former chairman of the Australian Nuclear Insurance Pool from 1985 to 1997.

He elaborated:
"My comment refers very much to the world scene and is not contentious. Apart from Three Mile Island, the claim experience has been very good. Chernobyl was not insured. Significantly, because Chernobyl was of a design that would not have been an acceptable risk at the time, notably the lack of a containment vessel, the accident had no impact on premium rates for Western plants.

"The structure of insurance of nuclear installations is different from ordinary industrial risks. It involves international conventions, national legislation "channelling" liability to the operators, and pooling of insurance capacity in more than twenty countries. The national nuclear insurance pool approach was particularly developed in the UK in 1956 as a way of marshalling insurance capacity for the exotic perils of meltdown, etc. Other national pools that followed were modelled on the UK pool - now known as Nuclear Risk Insurers Limited, and based in the City of London."


WNA
Liability for Nuclear Accidents - WNA paper
Nuclear Risk Insurers

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