Marsh introduces insurance program to protect against real estate liability.

Marsh Inc. has announced a comprehensive new insurance program that protects organizations against a wide range of professional liability issues associated with real estate ownership, investment, management and operations. The program is especially applicable to pension funds, real estate investment trusts, general and limited partnerships, financial institutions, joint ventures and other real property owners and managers.

Developed by Marsh and Lexington Insurance Company, a member company of American International Group (AIG), the program is known as RealSecure. It provides up to $100 million of broad-based coverage to protect corporate assets and partnership entities. The integrated policy can include coverage for directors and officers liability, professional liability, pollution liability resulting from professional negligence, employment practices, and general partner's liability resulting from real estate operations.

The combination of an expanding U.S. liability environment and complex real estate ownership structures is creating greater risks for real estate owners and managers, who may find themselves liable for alleged wrongdoing by property management organizations, contractors, shareholders and other third parties.

"Unfortunately, traditional professional liability insurance policies that work in other industries fall short in the real estate business, where we often see gaps in coverage and disputes between carriers over coverage issues," said Alexandra Glickman, a managing director of Marsh and leader of the company's Real Estate and Hospitality Practice. "With the input and advice of our clients, we've designed a comprehensive insurance program that effectively addresses sophisticated real estate ownership structures and is tailored--to meet the special needs of the industry. The policy clearly recognizes the interdependencies of real estate operations and provides interlocking coverages to avoid claims issues that could arise under other arrangements."

RealSecure offers an economical means of purchasing broad insurance that can save owners as much as 20 percent of the cost of buying separate insurance policies, while providing protection tailored to the unique needs of the real estate industry.

Available on a single- or multi-year basis, RealSecure provides an aggregate limit across all lines of coverage under the program and offers the flexibility to establish a different deductible and reinstatement for each line. The program automatically cow ers all subsidiaries of a real estate entity, including limited liability corporations and partnerships, joint ventures, general and limited partnerships, title holding companies and related entities for which the insured entity is responsible.

"The use of a single limit and flexibility in setting deductibles lets clients set the level of risk they want to transfer and what they want to assume," said Shaun Kelly, executive vice president of Lexington Insurance Company. "In effect, RealSecure gives clients greater ability to understand their various liability exposures and the costs associated with retaining them or transferring them to an underwriter."