The Treasury Dept. has decided to extend the requirement that insurers make terrorism-related coverage available in all of their commercial property and casualty policies. Insurance and real estate groups have been pushing for the department to act quickly to extend the "make available" provision of the 2002 Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, arguing that their markets need the certainty that they say the decision would provide.
In its decision, announced June 18, Treasury is extending the make-available requirement by one year, making the new cutoff Dec. 31, 2005. The 2002 statute said the department had to make that decision by Sept. 1, but Treasury said it was acting early "in order to avoid any potential disruption in the terrorism risk insurance market."