PART ONE of a Series: EPIC I
A KIDNAP AND RANSOM INSURANCE PLAN

Kidnap Ransom and Detention Insurance has been secretly available from a very few sources for a number of years. Our Plan, The EPIC I provides easy access and implementation. It should be prescribed to personal and business clients, especially those who travel internationally. The EPIC I has optional
features which allow this plan to be tailored to a client’s specification.It is cost effective and sensible coverage.

Included with this coverage is access to skilled help from an internationally respected security force. This firm has experts on instant call to provide counter-terrorist efforts, negotiations, release, and repatriation. Clients deserve to know of the availability of this plan!

K & R INSURANCE AN EXPANDING BUSINESS

Kidnap and Ransom Insurance, known in the industry as K & R Insurance, covers not only the money that may be handed over to the kidnappers, but also the fees of special hostage negotiation advisors, so-called Crisis Response Consultants. Charging about $2,000 a day, the Crisis Response Consultant is typically a person with a background in the U.S. or British security forces. When the kidnappers get in touch, the experienced consultant advises the
victim’s family or colleagues on how to proceed and with whom and how to communicate with them. Crisis Response Consultants are stationed so they can reach any spot on Earth within four hours. The best results stem from Crisis Response Consultants being brought in before local police or military forces.

SPECIAL PLANS TO ADD SAFETY AND SECURITY TO THE JOB

RANSOM USUALLY PAID – Communication with the kidnappers helps convince them the counter offer is a good deal. “A cast iron rule is that at no time should it appear that money is easy to obtain”. In 70 to 80 percent of cases ransoms are paid, and fewer than 5 percent of victims die. Kidnapping emerged in its modern guise in Argentina and Chile in the 1970s and has reached industrial proportions in Colombia, where rebels make hundreds of millions of dollars a year from ransom. The K&R business, which first developed in response to the kidnapping of U.S. aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby in 1932, has boomed with the world crime wave. Over $100 million a year is now paid in kidnap insurance premiums worldwide, mostly underwritten by Lloyds of London.

Taking out kidnap insurance is actually illegal in Colombia, although it is not against the law for Colombians to be insured abroad. In Colombia no individual or company will ever admit to having K & R Insurance, for they feel it makes them a prospect for kidnapping.

PSYCHOLOGICAL PRESSURE – Leaks of insurance policy details abounded in 1996, when the wife of a former president of German company BASF was kidnapped in Medellin. The kidnappers knew their hostage was insured for $6 million. Colombian rebels, unlike smaller scale kidnappers elsewhere, are easily able to keep their victims for months or years, hiding them in secret jungle or mountain camps. Aware that families missing loved ones are in more of a hurry than the kidnappers, these terrorists have become expert in applying psychological pressure. “When they call, they’re very aggressive. They
say the victim’s sick, he’s going to die or he got caught in cross-fire so speed up the negotiations,” said the negotiator. They also developed financial information out of the victim. “They’re telling him his wife’s spending all the money he worked for all his life; she’s got herself a boyfriend,” said the negotiator, whose worst case was of a man kept in a pit for five months, eating out of a can lowered to him by a chain.

An Insurance Executive that specializes in Kidnap & Ransom coverage, tells of a policyholder who was held captive in a small farmhouse located near the Colombian city of Medellin when the police stumbled in.

“A lot of bullets started flying. All twelve of the kidnappers were killed; four of the policemen were killed and the Insured was killed”. He draws a simple
conclusion. “You never want to try a rescue attempt. Pay the money and get the guy back”.

Managers are particular targets for kidnappers. Business related kidnappings are up to 315% over 2,000, especially in Mexico, Latin and South America.

This plan is the access key to find and employ professional and seasoned crisis management people who are trained to negotiate with the terrorist or kidnappers.

Continued ————-see The EPIC I, part II (next issue)

Petersen International Underwriters, a Correspondent to Lloyd’s is a member of the Overseas Security Advisory Council which shares information with other members as well as the Department of State, to track and analyze various terrorists and extortionists activities around the World.