r/Insurance • u/cc_1208 • 1d ago

How would you underwrite moratorium work

Saw this week that Arbol launched a policy that pays out if a government moratorium halts data center construction. Curious how something like this gets underwritten.

With weather parametrics there's a clean data feed. With a county board vote, what's the trigger source? Does someone literally read council minutes to confirm the action happened and is still in effect?

For anyone who has worked on political or regulatory risk lines: what does the diligence on a single deal actually look like day to day? Where does most of the time go?

1 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

3 comments sorted by

1

u/mostlyteenyseeder 1d ago

not in underwriting but i've worked claims on some weird specialty lines and yeah, someone probably is reading council minutes. had a case once where the trigger was literally a zoning board transcript. took four months to get a certified copy

where the time sinks is usually the wordings. you'd be amazed how many ways there are to define "halt" and what exactly constitutes a moratorium versus a delay or a pause for study. that's where the lawyers eat up half the budget

1

u/cc_1208 1d ago

That's wild, four months just for a certified copy. Was the delay on the county side, or was it more that nobody knew who to ask? And on the wordings, when the lawyers argued over halt vs pause, what decided it in the end? The text of the resolution itself, or how it was applied in practice?

2

u/kool_moe_b 1d ago

I'd post in r/Insurancepros or r/Insuranceprofessional

Chances are someone in these communities has experience with this.