September 11: The legal fallout
News@PATA:
Reproduced with kind permission from PATA
Issues & Trends Pacific Asia
Volume 7, Issue 4
April 2002
September 11: The legal fallout
This edition of Issues and Trends summarises some of the salient issues discussed at the Fourth Annual National Travel Law Symposium held in Washington D.C. on January 16, 2002, organised by Travel Weekly (U.S.) and the Association of Retail Travel Agents. While mainly relevant to the United States, the subject matter has far-reaching implications and pointers for the Pacific Asia travel and tourism industry at large.
The travel industry is no stranger to litigation, but in the wake of the September 11 attacks, it is set to become more exposed to legal issues than ever before. While safety and security are the dominant issues, the industry risks seeing the long arm of the law reaching out to everything from dealing with insurance companies to civil rights, bankruptcies, protection of trade secrets and personal liability. The days when the industry had only to worry about “simple” issues such as environmental violations and consumer protection are gone.
Insurance protection and claims
Today, there is increased awareness of the importance of travel protection programmes as consumers seek to protect their vacation dollars. After the Sept. 11 attacks, many U.S. travellers postponed trips or changed their overseas plans to domestic vacations. There has been a dramatic increase in sales of travel insurance.
For insurers and the travelling public, the biggest change is that security concerns have shifted from the realm of foreseeability to predictability. Both are key concepts.
According to Mr. Samuel Halpern, lawyer and Executive Vice President of Insuractive, Inc., “Travel insurance policies cover possible but unforeseen situations. The more likely something is to occur, the more foreseeable it is, and thus the less insurable it is, and the less likely a claim will be paid subsequently. From the insurance provider’s perspective, when an outcome crosses the threshold from possible to likely, it becomes foreseeable…The anxiety travellers face today merits careful reading of the bright-line provisions in travel insurance policies by agents and travellers alike.”
Before Sept. 11, commercial terrorism coverage was routine, neither expensive nor excluded. Insurers did not contemplate substantial losses from terrorism within the U.S. even though acts of terrorism were conside
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