McGill said it had collaborated with local Ukrainian insurer ARX to provide up to $50 million in cover for each commercial property policy, with reinsurance from companies in London, including Lloyd’s of London syndicates
Broker McGill and Partners has launched a commercial property war risk reinsurance program for Ukraine, which it said Thursday was the first of its kind since Russia’s invasion of the country in February 2022.
Companies in Ukraine have found it difficult to get insurance since the start of the war because Western reinsurers, which insure the insurers, have placed exclusions on the country.
McGill said it had collaborated with local Ukrainian insurer ARX to provide up to $50 million in cover for each commercial property policy, with reinsurance from companies in London, including Lloyd’s of London syndicates.
FortuneGuard, an insurance technology company, will use official data on projectiles fired into Ukraine to assess the likelihood of war damage. Cover will be available for properties that are more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the front line, McGill said in a statement.
Hamish Greenwood, head of crisis management at McGill, said the broker had been working for some months to set up the program.
“We never felt a blanket exclusion across all of Ukraine was fair, because the risk in the west is not the same as the risk in the east,” Mr. Greenwood said. Seven London firms have already agreed to offer cover under the program, he added.
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. have already stepped in to back war insurance in Ukraine for goods and vehicles in transit, and health care and agriculture, respectively.
Broker Marsh offers an insurance program for cargo transportation through the Black Sea corridor, with the support of Ukrainian state banks.