210-07-30

By Editor, CIR

CFC Underwriting has launched Esurance MEDIA – a modular policy designed to cover the major risks of traditional authors, publishers, broadcasters and media professional service firms.

Business development director, Graeme Newman, comments: “The way in which we communicate today is very different to 10 years ago. The worlds of media and technology are converging and where content used to be tightly controlled by editors and journalists, input from the public is now deemed an essential part of ‘news’. The trend towards online content is relentless and this is making it harder for traditional media companies to manage their content risks.”

“Insurance policies for media businesses that started life in the traditional space but are now increasingly operating in the digital arena have failed to keep up with these changes. As a result, these companies face growing gaps in cover as their exposures change. For traditional media companies to survive, they must evolve. It’s essential that they recognise the need for insurance cover that will evolve with them and that insurers create policies that can flex to meet their developing needs. At CFC, we’re doing just that.”

Esurance MEDIA is the first of a suite of new products being launched by CFC, designed to offer media businesses comprehensive protection for the risks they face in their day-to-day operations.

Newman continues: “The new breed of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, which have exploded into our everyday lives and consume more of our online time than any other single activity, have pushed traditional media companies into new areas – but also represent a unique challenge for insurers. Their rate of growth, coupled with the highly uncertain legal landscape in which they operate and the lack of historical data, has made their risk hard to quantify and even harder to price. As a result there have been few, if any, viable insurance options for them – until now.”

As part of the new suite, CFC will also be launching Esurance 2.0 – the first comprehensive insurance policy designed specifically for social media companies.

Both Esurance MEDIA and Esurance 2.0 allow coverage to be tailored to suit the specific needs of each business and includes:

• comprehensive media liability including cover for user generated content
• defamation including libel and slander
• cyber liability, privacy liability and privacy breach notification costs
• intellectual property rights infringement
• blanket professional liability
• employers’ and public liability, and
• property and business interruption, including cyber perils.

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