Seems that there are very few providers of railroad liability insurance and this lack in the Market has kept out many would be excursion railroad operartors
The number of players interested in any market is not commonly known to the "man in the street." The best way to test the market would be to channel enquiries via the big brokers.
In my pre-retirement age I had a lot of contact with Marsh UK's Cardiff Office staff (Marsh UK being a member of the Marsh McLellan Group based in the US of course).
I found them all to be expert in their fields, and able to tap into ever more specialist knowledge whenever needed.
I was merely involved with Local Authority Risk Management and Insurances (think UK County Councils, running schools, senior citizen care homes, pubic housing, highways, as well as leisure facilities, but the same type f arrangements would be in force. If A can't answer you, he calls up B to take over, and so on.
Yes, I had heard of Aspen, and met one of their people at a Marsh Customer Day, and I suspect they are getting on with looking for new business as all must.
Perhaps we underestimate the level of expertise out there with the so called amateurs, let's not forget that railway restorations started up in the UK in the 1950s, how about in the US?
There's been an impressive amount of knowledge sharing between the experts and amateurs over that time, and that applies all around the world.
MH
Insurance is in essence rather like gambling, both for the insurance industry and those seeking coverage. For most things, like automobile insurance, the odds are well understood and the insurance premiums can be set at a level where the insurance company can make a profit and remain in business. While some claims may be massive, averaged over a broad client base they can be absorbed.
Where the insurance industry has more difficulty in setting rates is for lines of business with a very small (sometimes only once) need for coverage. The premiums paid will not come close to covering the potential liability if a really major disaster occurs, so they have to gamble that it will never happen. Not every company is willing to take that risk, or even take the trouble to understand the odds.
Britain has a thriving preserved railway industry so the insurance industry has a fairly broad base of customers paying premiums and experience with ongoing costs of claims. It's not as much of a pure gamble for them.
Is British insurance law still operating under the old Common Law whereby the involved parites are only liable for, and to the extent of, their involvement in a claim? It was the abolition of that which resulted in the "deep pockets" lawsuits now practised throughout the USA which have so convoluted civil law and led to the awards which you read about and you wonder what the jury was thinking. [On a side note, for all of you who want a USA single-payer health care system similar to Canada or the current British health sytems, unless major limits are placed on medical malpractise claims the USA cannot have one. The government program would financially colapse in only a few years if the current level of jury awards was to continue.]
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