There was a lot that changed with the Commercial Property Forms in the 2013 series. In fact, most forms underwent some sort of modification. One of the most interesting of the changes was the introduction of an optional coverage available on the Dependent Property Forms for Dependent Properties in the Supply Chain (Business Interruption).
By way of background, the Business Income and Extra Expense forms require that there is direct damage at the premises described by a covered cause of loss that gives rise to a loss of income or need to pay extra costs to operate during the period of restoration. In providing this form of coverage, we have been aware of the exposure to a loss of income due to a physical loss at a location that our insured depends on for various reasons. Recognizing that a loss to a dependent location could cause financial harm to our insured, ISO created Dependent Property Endorsements (CP 1508, CP 15 09, CP 1534) provided on a scheduled basis. What this means is that, for our insured, we identify what company(ies) they are dependent on and schedule those locations on the Dependent Property Form attached to their business income policy.
For example, we could be insuring a winery that is dependent on a single manufacturer to manufacture their distinct wine bottle and provide them with their customized cork. If that bottle manufacturer had a loss to their manufacturing facility by a peril insured against on the winery's policy and the winery now has no bottles and the winery can demonstrate they are losing money or incurring an Extra Expense by going to a more expensive alternate supplier then the Dependent Property Endorsement could respond.
What we learned, when losses such as this arise, is that oftentimes the physical loss did not occur at the dependent location we scheduled on the policy but rather to a "location" that the dependent property was dependent upon to supply them a product or service. So to expand on the winery example — the bottle manufacturer is dependent on a single cork manufacturer to supply them with the blank corks they customize and the cork manufacturer has a loss (covered peril) and cannot supply the wine bottle company with the product. We never identified the cork manufacturer on our insured's policy as there was no known or direct relationship.
The new language on the Dependent Property forms have an option for "secondary contributing locations" and "secondary recipient locations." Secondary locations are limited to direct suppliers and recipients of the dependent property's materials or supplies.
On the form, secondary contributing location and recipient location are now defined terms. There are some important clarifications of the coverage:
- The secondary location is not identified in the schedule. However, there is a box on the schedule that has to be marked identifying that a secondary location has been included.
- The secondary location cannot be owned or operated by the "contributing" or "recipient" location that is identified in the schedule.
- There is clarity that a secondary location is not a road, bridge, tunnel, waterway, airfield, pipeline or any other similar area or structure.
- There is clarity that any source of "services" in the area of water, power, wastewater removal or communication supply cannot be a secondary dependent property. These would be covered under Utility Interruption endorsements.
- Lastly, there is clarity that the secondary dependent property coverage is subject to the territory of the policy and is not worldwide.
This additional coverage under the Dependent Property Endorsements is very important to consider, especially for manufacturing accounts. This all gets back to our identifying exposure and providing solution.
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