WTW, a global advisory, broking and solutions company, has introduced a new financial product targeting clients intending to protect and leverage their intangible assets by considering a transfer of the associated risks.
An intangible asset is one that is not physical in nature but one that can hold significant value, and which can be created, transferred, bought or sold. WTW’s Intangible Asset Protection (IAP) is a first-of-its-kind product to fill a coverage gap in the market. The IAP solution closes a coverage gap in cyber, property, business interruption, and traditional intellectual property (IP) insurance.
Some types of intangible assets include intellectual property rights such as patents, trademarks, and copyrights, in addition to databases, contracts, and licensing agreements. Non-public, proprietary information such as formulas, processes, R&D testing data, designs, algorithms, and computer programming code are also typically defined as intangible assets.
Some of these assets that carry exposures are where a company might want to consider protecting and transferring the associated risks, this is where WTW’s new IAP product would apply.
Kim Cauthorn, the Global IP Leader at WTW, commented, “We listen closely to the needs of our clients; intangible assets comprise the majority of enterprise value for many entities today, but most of those assets are uninsured. Accordingly, that calls for a product that closes a key insurance coverage gap. IAP is the first holistic, modular vehicle for clients to tailor coverage to fit their IA risk profile, with the potential to grow and evolve with their business needs.”
Keeping in line with client demands, WTW has created IAP to offer protection against IA-related exposures and their potential financial impacts. IAP is a tailored insurance offering that will initially cover non-public, proprietary, and intangible assets from accidental or malicious insider actions resulting in disclosed, misappropriated, damaged, destroyed or lost IA.
In this the coverage will be capped at $10 million in year one at the beginning, it will expand through an iterative approach to cover additional intangible asset categories and exposures at higher limits.
Aoife Woulfe, the Head of Intellectual Property, at Tokio Marine Kiln (TMK), the carrier partnering on the solution, commented, “Tokio Marine Kiln has a longstanding reputation for intellectual property products that address changing clients’ needs, and we are proud to partner with WTW on this pioneering product. This product addresses critical coverage gaps in intangible risks and has the potential to become invaluable to clients by increasing the resilience of their businesses to unexpected events.”
