Insurer Adds Nuclear Exclusion for Cars

With the United States on the brink of war in Iraq and North Korea test-firing missiles, State Farm Insurance Cos. is issuing a timely, if chilling, notice to customers: It won’t cover auto damage caused by nuclear blasts or radioactive fallout.

“No insurance company could withstand the financial impact of insuring a nuclear accident,” Bill Sirola, a spokesman for the nation’s largest automobile insurer, said Wednesday.

Never mind that filing an auto insurance claim may be the least of people’s worries should a nuclear strike occur.

Since Sept. 11, most insurance companies have been reassessing their exposure to potential losses from terrorism, including the possibility of an attack using a nuclear device or radioactive materials.

Nuclear exclusions have been an insurance industry standard since the end of World War II, when the Soviet Union and the United States were locked in a nuclear standoff, said Pete Moraga, spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California.

But State Farm executives said they noticed during their post-Sept. 11 review that though the company’s homeowner policies clearly excluded damage from nuclear blasts, accidents and fallout, its auto policies appeared ambiguous.

The company has 3 million auto policyholders in California and 40 million nationwide. Notices are going out with renewals in states where the change has been approved by regulators, including California.

All policyholders are expected to receive the notices by mid-2004.

Most state insurance regulators have barred companies from dropping coverage for terrorist acts from personal policies, said Robert Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, although terrorism losses can be excluded from commercial policies.

However, insurers are not barred from specifically excluding coverage for certain types of claims, such as those arising from a nuclear power-plant meltdown or a nuclear bomb explosion in a populated area.