|
|
 |
|
| Risk & Reward |
Insuring Our Personal Security
Rebecca Fannin
04/01/2004
|
Olivetto’s
ordeal was less dramatic than the scene in the Warner Bros. 2001 movie Proof of
Life, in which a professional hostage negotiator, played by Russell Crowe,
attempts a guns-blazing rescue of an American businessman, kidnapped by
antigovernment terrorists in Colombia while driving to work. The real-life 1994
kidnapping of Thomas Hargrove, which inspired that movie, dealt a near-lethal
blow to Hargrove’s father’s estate, because Hargrove did not have a K&R
policy. Only after two ransoms did the Colombian narco-guerrillas of the Armed
Revolutionary Forces of Colombia, the main terrorist and drug group in Latin
America, give him up. Certainly, however, the reality behind the movie has provided plenty of marketing ammunition for insurance companies such as
Lloyd’s, AIG and Chubb, which sell K&R policies to wealthy individuals.
Insurers and security experts argue that most of us should have a personal
risk management plan, just as we have sophisticated estate and investment plans,
and K&R insurance may be an appropriate part of it. It should be based on a
clear-eyed assessment of our potential exposure to the threat of kidnapping. The
impetus for developing such a plan has grown since 9/11; prior to that, many
believed kidnapping and terrorism were not a risk unless we traveled to
abduction hot spots such as Colombia or Mexico City, or to terrorism-risk zones
like the Middle East. But wealth advisors say the overall growth in animosity
toward Americans abroad, coupled with the heightened awareness of security risks
in general at home, has led to a rise in anxiety among many of us who travel on
a regular basis, and even at home for those of us who feel that our wealth makes
us a target for kidnappers. “What’s changed is that clearly people today are
more keenly aware of security risks,” says Henry Greenberg, director of wealth
strategies at Fleet Private Clients Group, a division of FleetBoston Financial
in Boston.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
