Dateline: 09/10/1998
SCHAUMBURG, IL, NEW YORK, October 9, 1998 -- Zurich-American Specialties has added an important new insurance product--Employment Practices Event coverage--to its Employment Practices Liability (EPL) risk management package. The new product will provide reimbursement up to a $100,000 limit for the cost of professional services available from an employment and labor law firm and/or a public relations/crisis management firm engaged to help manage an employment event.
Among some of the employment events covered in the endorsement are: plant closings; layoffs or terminations; acquisitions which necessitate a major reorganization; harassment/discrimination implicating executive level employees or investigation by a civil rights organization, public interest group or like organization for violations of employment laws.
“The idea, “ noted Lisa McElroy, assistant vice president in Zurich-American Specialties, "is to have expert advice on the best way to handle the employment situation and expert advice on how to deal with any media implications. This could be critical to a company facing any one of the listed events.”
Zurich is offering the product to companies with 5,000 employees or more, with a minimum $10 million limit.
A range of complimentary loss control services is also part of Zurich’s EPL risk management package which includes a hotline fax service, self employment labor law audit, employment practices training, a corporate governance newsletter, and an online interactive reference resource.
Among the employment and labor law firms available to Zurich customers are Epstein Becker & Green, Fisher & Phillips LLP and Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.
The panel of public relations firms includes APCO Associates, BSMG Worldwide, Golin/Harris Communications, Morgen-Walke Associates and Padilla Speer Beardsley.
Zurich-American's Executive Assurance department, a leading provider of D&O insurance, created the new Employment Practices Event coverage.
For more information on the product, readers may contact Lisa McElroy at 212-748-2375.
Zurich-American Insurance Group is a member of the Zurich Financial Services Group, one of the global leaders in the financial services industry. Providing its customers with products and solutions in the area of financial protection and asset accumulation, Zurich Financial Services concentrates its activities in four core businesses: non-life and life insurance, reinsurance and asset management.
Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, Zurich Financial Services' worldwide presence builds on strong positions in its three home markets: the United States, the United Kingdom and Switzerland. (It is the largest Swiss based insurance group, the third largest non-life insurer in the UK, and the third largest property and casualty writer in the US. The Group is one of the world's top 10 asset managers with some $375 billion in assets under management.) With offices in close to 60 countries, Zurich Financial Services reaches over 30 million customers and employs more than 68,000 people.
Based on pro-forma consolidated figures for 1997, the Group achieved gross premiums of more than $44 billion. This amount includes insurance deposits as well as premiums from the Farmers Exchanges. The pro-forma net income for the year 1997 amounted to $2.1 billion. On December 31, 1997, the Zurich Financial Services Group had pro-forma $375 billion of assets under management of which $222 billion represent funds managed for third-party institutional and retail customers.
Media contact:
Chris Tasher
Public Relations Manager
847-605-6372