BestWeek: Love Parade Disaster Highlights Worst-Case Risks in Insuring Festivals

OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Twenty dead and 500-plus injured at the Love Parade festival in Germany equaled a nightmare scenario. Luckily for festival-goers, promoters and the insurance industry, the deadly stampede through a single entry tunnel at the July 24, 2010, techno music festival is also a very rare scenario, according to an article in this week’s BestWeek U.S./Canada.

With almost every community offering some type of festival or event, “the event market is virtually limitless,” Lorena Hatfield, marketing resources manager for K&K Insurance Group Inc., told BestWeek.

And in BestWeek Europe, the U.K. mutual insurance sector is sensing opportunities in the plans of the newly elected government to reduce the public deficit. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition that came to power as a result of the May 6 general election has pledged a sharp reduction in public spending.

Also in BestWeek U.S./Canada, for the insurance industry, 2010 may have been the single biggest legislative year in a generation. Capitol Hill’s health and financial reform efforts are re-writing whole swaths of the business. But there is always a next bill on the horizon. In the case of the 111th Congress, now in its waning days, there probably isn’t much legislative energy left for insurance matters — except for routine tweaks of the National Flood Insurance Program.

BestWeek is published by A.M. Best Co. for insurance professionals. To subscribe, visit http://www.ambest.com/sales/BestWeek.

Founded in 1899, A.M. Best Co. is a global full-service credit rating organization dedicated to serving the financial and health care service industries, including insurance companies, banks, hospitals and health care system providers. For more information, visit www.ambest.com.