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HEADLINE: Bush Plans Push for Terrorism Insurance; Meeting to Stress Economic Need

BYLINE: Jackie Spinner, Washington Post Staff Writer

BODY:




In a meeting today with business and labor leaders, President Bush will emphasize the possibility that jobs could be lost if the Senate does not act on terrorism insurance legislation, a senior administration official said.

Bush plans to use the meeting to highlight the growing "drag on the economy" created by a lack of available terrorism insurance since Sept. 11, the official said.

The White House wants Congress to create a federal backup plan to help insurance companies pay future terrorism claims. The House passed a bill last year that would lend insurers money to pay the claims. The Senate has not acted on a competing proposal that would require insurers to pay part of the claims resulting from a terrorism attack before the government would step in to cover the rest.

Teamsters leader James P. Hoffa and Edward Sullivan, president of the AFL-CIO construction trades department, are among the 125 people the White House expects to be at the meeting today.

Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge and Bush's chief economics adviser, Lawrence B. Lindsey, also are to planning to attend the meeting.

In preparation, the White House has collected evidence of municipalities and property owners that have not been able to obtain terrorism insurance.

Most reinsurers stopped providing terrorism coverage after Jan. 1. As a result, primary insurers, which rely on reinsurance to help spread their risks, have limited their terrorism coverage. The problem has mostly affected large commercial policyholders, but governments and businesses across the country are feeling an impact.

For example, officials in Georgia's Gwinnett County, an Atlanta suburb, have been able to find only $ 50 million of terrorism insurance coverage for a $ 300 million portfolio of properties that includes the county jail and sewage treatment facility.

The New York Metropol- itan Transit Authority has $ 150 million of terrorism insurance to cover its bridges and tunnels, assets worth $ 1.5 billion.

In downtown Chicago, Pritzker Realty Group LP cannot get financing to build an office building because the project does not have terrorism insurance.

And casino developer Steve Wynn has halted plans to build a $ 2 billion development in Las Vegas that would create 16,000 new jobs because he cannot buy enough terrorism insurance to satisfy his lenders.

"It's taken a little bit of time for people to realize how many areas are being affected," the Bush administration official said, adding that the White House hopes today's meeting "will provide a new round of evidence."



LOAD-DATE: April 08, 2002